


Scenes from a life

by softlyforgotten



Series: Such Great Heights [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Children, Curtain Fic, Domestic Fluff, M/M, There is LITERALLY no plot in this, There is a mean teenage girl called Sirius tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-11
Updated: 2017-01-11
Packaged: 2018-09-16 21:17:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9289949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softlyforgotten/pseuds/softlyforgotten
Summary: Several years, several Christmases, several children.





	1. Chapter 1

**DECEMBER, 1999**

The worst bit about dating Malfoy was probably all the time Harry spent in the dungeons these days. He could never get over the feeling that Snape was around the corner about to leap out at him at any moment; and then he had to feel strange and guilty and sad about Snape all over again.

He’d told Draco about it, not sure how he wanted Draco to respond, and Draco had nodded and looked away with his shoulders hunched.

“What?” Harry had said.

“Nothing. He - looked after me a bit in sixth year.” He’d looked up at Harry, half-frowning. “Dumbledore was going to die anyway?”

“Apparently.”

Draco had been quiet a moment longer and then said, “Whatever. Want to go visit Monster?” and they’d not spoken about it again.

But as it got colder and darker and as McGonagall started threatening them very seriously with months and months of detention if they kept sneaking out after curfew to hang out with Monster, Harry somehow ended up spending more time than he’d thought possible in the dungeons. They hung about in empty classrooms or, sometimes, in the Slytherin Common Room, which felt weird but made sense: not even half of Slytherin’s students had returned to Hogwarts this year, and all of the ones who had seemed vaguely terrified of Harry, and even, to an extent, Draco. They steered clear, unlike the Gryffindor Common Room, where Harry was mobbed by people to chat every time he went in, and where Draco flatly refused to go. Harry didn’t really blame him.

Still: “It’s gloomy here,” Harry said, peering around. “Weren’t you really scared when you were a little kid?”

“We’re not all massive babies, Potter,” Draco said absently. He was leaning up against the other end of the couch - the weird _leather_ couch with its enormous quilted back, Slytherins were bizarre - and going through his Charms notes. His legs were draped over Harry’s lap. Harry had taken quiet hold of Draco’s ankle, but he was trying not to distract Draco too much. They got in trouble for that, too.

Harry looked at the windows. “Do you ever see mermaids?”

“Crabbe swore he did once,” Draco said, still in that thoughtless voice that meant he wasn’t really paying attention to what he was saying. “But we think it was just a giant bit of lakeweed. Normally they steer clear of us.”

“Mmm,” Harry said, not used to Draco saying _Crabbe_ in that voice.

“Pansy thought the mermaids were a myth, until fourth year,” Draco continued, “but my father--” He stopped and shook his head. “Shut up. I’m studying.”

Harry swallowed. “You can talk about your dad if you want.”

“It was only him being racist again,” Draco said, and offered Harry a quick smirk. Harry grinned back at him. “But I really do have to work. Flitwick’s setting us that mock before Christmas--”

“Ugh, shut up,” Harry groaned. “You’re worse than Hermione.”

“Not all of us are sure we can just waltz into our chosen career on name alone, Potter.”

“Yes, how corrupt of me,” Harry said. “I’ve never heard of anyone else using their name to try and get something, have you, Malfoy?”

Draco lazily flicked him off.

“Anyway,” Harry said, “what is your chosen career, huh?”

“This and that,” Draco said, who was still being extraordinarily evasive about the whole thing.

Harry sighed loudly. He knocked his head back against the couch. He couldn’t be bothered studying, he wasn’t in the mood, and Draco looked all golden and fine on the other end of the couch. It was distracting. Harry rubbed his hand over his mouth.

“Stop staring at me,” Draco said, without looking up.

“M’not,” Harry said.

“You’re lying again, and I have to work.”

“Okay,” Harry said, and went back to trying to look at his own notes - actually, Hermione’s notes, he’d stolen them and fled and later he would have to face her wrath. He managed to read through her tightly packed dotpoints on the Third to Fifth Laws of MagoThermo Dynamics and actually pay attention before Draco nudged his foot against Harry’s leg, once and then again.

Harry looked up. Draco’s head was bent diligently, focused on his notes.

Harry went back to his reading. Draco dug his sock-clad toes into Harry’s thigh.

“All right,” Harry said, putting his notes aside, and then he crawled over and dropped down heavily on top of Draco, who yelped and tried to pretend he wasn’t laughing when Harry rubbed his face against Draco’s cheek, his neck, biting, letting stubble drag.

Draco grabbed at his hair, shifting so that he could get a leg between Harry’s. They’d have to go upstairs in a minute, up to Draco’s empty, eerie dorm. Harry hated it, but it was useful.

“I have to study,” Draco said.

“Stop bugging me, then,” Harry said, and Draco made a little noise, turning his face into Harry’s hair.

“I - ah --”

“Still a few weeks until Christmas,” Harry said.

“Two weeks. And my mother still wants me to come home early--”

“Stop being such a mummy’s boy, then,” Harry said, and Draco rolled him over, kissed him hard.

\---

On the last Hogsmeade weekend before Christmas, Harry dragged Draco out with the Gryffindors. Neville and Seamus met them in the village and they walked along in a mostly cheery group, Draco quiet but not antagonistic, looking far away and preoccupied. Harry suspected he’d float off if Harry allowed it, so he kept Draco’s hand tucked in the pocket of his coat, their fingers linked.

“Maybe next time we can invite Pansy,” Harry said, very generously he felt, and Draco gave him an amused look.

“Maybe,” he said, but Neville sighed loudly.

“Let’s not,” Neville said.

“Hey,” Harry said, laughing a bit, “if I can put up with her, you can.”

“But you put up with a lot of things these days, Harry,” Neville said, and Harry went quiet. On his other side, he could feel Ron and Hermione exchanging glances. Draco was unaffected, hand warm and dry in Harry’s, looking interested by the Honeydukes display across the street.

“All right, Nev,” Ron said.

“I’m just saying,” Neville said.

“I know, I’ve got it,” Harry said. “You’ve said before, Neville, it’s fine.”

“I need to stop there,” Draco said, quiet enough that only Harry heard it, but not particularly shy; Harry thought that most of the time, Draco just wasn’t that interested in talking to the other Gryffindors. He liked Ron, though Harry didn’t think he’d ever admit it, and he liked Ginny and _did_ admit that, leering at Harry; he was wary around Hermione. The rest he’d seemed to have dismissed as insignificant. “Mum’ll want one of the Christmas baskets--”

“Okay,” Harry said, “shall we grab a drink, first? Guys, do you want to go to the Three Brooms--”

“I have to keep saying it, Harry,” Neville said. He looked tired and sad and Harry liked Neville a lot but he was starting to get annoyed. “Because you don’t get it, and it’s--”

“Malfoy’s very sorry for being a big bully,” Harry said, “but you’ve clearly won, and I’m not forcing you to be friends, so I don’t get why this has to keep being such an issue.”

“You didn’t grow up with wizards, Harry,” Neville said, voice hard. “You don’t know what the Malfoys are like. This is what they _do_ , post-war.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Thanks for defending my honour, but if Draco’s still sleeping with me just for a pardon I reckon I can handle it on my own now.”

“I’d be a bit stupid, if that was it,” Draco remarked lightly, as though they were talking about the weather. “You got me the pardon ages ago.”

Harry leered at him. “Found something you liked, huh?” 

Hermione rolled her eyes and dragged Ron ahead.

“Harry,” Neville said, “I’m telling you - you didn’t grow up in the wizarding world. The Malfoys make names for themselves and they do it by sneaking out of whatever they got caught up with last and then using the power they build for the next. There hasn’t been a Dark wizard over the last three _centuries_ the Malfoys haven’t been associated with!”

“Are you associating with any Dark wizards?” Harry asked Draco, who gave him a bored look.

“Maybe I’ll go get the chocolate,” he drawled, “let you two have this out--”

“I’m saying, Malfoy,” Neville said, face twisted and unhappy, “that you might have fooled Harry, but you don’t fool me.”

“Good on you, then,” Draco said, and he slowed, taking his hand away from Harry’s, body shifting to face Neville.

“Draco,” Harry said carefully, reaching out.

Neville laughed. “You think I’m afraid of you, Malfoy? You haven’t been a match for me in a duel since fifth year.”

“I know that,” Draco said. His face was cool and hard.

“It’s not worth fighting with either of you,” Neville said. “Everyone knows you’re a rat, Malfoy, but Harry, I - you’re letting everyone down. I think you’ve gotten complacent, and I don’t - what do you think your _parents_ would say, honestly?”

“Neville,” Harry said, horrified, voice catching in his throat, but Neville continued, brutal and honest.

“You’re going against everything they stood for - everything they died for--”

 

Then Draco moved, fast like a snake, too quick for Harry to catch, and Neville went down in a tumble of limbs.

Harry took a moment to understand, and in that moment Draco had thrown another punch and received a few back with interest. But really, Draco didn’t stand any more of a chance fighting Neville with his fists than with his wand - Neville was bigger and more used to it, had been going up against Crabbe and Goyle since he was eleven, and had probably wanted to punch Draco in the face for a very long time. Harry swore and waded in, and Ron - who had doubled back at the commotion - joined him, Hermione diving in too to grab Neville’s arm.

Harry hauled Draco out of it by the back of his shirt, Draco panting and snarling. His left eye was half-closed, weeping a little involuntarily; that was going to be black. 

“Merlin, Neville,” Ron said, looking unimpressed. “What’s wrong with you?”

“He started it,” Neville snapped.

“Keep your mouth off his parents,” Draco snarled, still twitching and trying to get free of Harry, though he looked a little dazed. “You stupid lug--”

“ _Draco_ ,” Harry said, and shook him a bit. “Enough! It’s fine, come on--”

“It’s _not_ ,” Draco said.

“I hate you,” Neville said, shaking off Ron’s arm and picking himself up.

“What did he say about your parents, Harry?” Hermione said, frowning. “Neville--”

“It’s fine,” Harry said, hanging onto a panting Draco. He felt they’d rather lost the higher ground in the conversation by virtue of Draco going for Neville like a schoolboy. “It’s fine! I’m just - I’m going to go get a drink.”

“You should get Draco back to the Hospital Wing,” Hermione said, coming forward to peer at Draco worriedly. “I don’t know the right healing spells--”

“I’m _fine_ ,” Draco said, nose trailing blood. “I’m - let’s get a drink! Not with him!”

“For fuck’s sake,” Harry said.

Neville started, “Harry--”

“No, I’m going to - later, okay,” Harry said, pissed off and worried all at once, not sure how to deal with it. “Hermione, will you--”

“Yes,” Hermione sighed, “go ahead, we’ll catch up with you,” and Harry dragged a reluctant and furious Draco off to the Three Broomsticks.

“I don’t know why you thought that was going to help,” he said grimly, “you know you can’t take Neville, and he’s probably been waiting for a chance to punch you since first year--”

“I know, all right!” Draco snapped, and Harry sighed and found them a booth tucked away from the others.

“Wait here, I’ll get you a drink.”

At the busy bar, waiting to be served, Harry rested his elbows on the counter and rubbed his face tiredly. He hadn’t expected it to be easy, integrating Draco with the Gryffindors, and for the most part he didn’t bother too much: it was easy to slip away, and Ron and Hermione, who were the most important, were doing their best, always polite if occasionally uncertain. Ron had actually slapped Draco on the back the other week when he’d said something about Quidditch that Ron approved of, though they’d both looked shocked by it afterward.

He hadn’t expected it to be easy, and Draco didn’t make it easier, though Harry had noticed Draco trying to rein himself in these days. He ordered two butterbeers absently, still thinking. The Gryffindors couldn’t be blamed, really. A year ago he would have been the same. It hurt, a bit, that Neville had gone for him so personally, but Harry knew and liked Neville: they would fix it. It was just time, Hermione kept saying, and Harry was trying. It just made him feel old and exhausted and like he wanted a war to fight, something concrete to do.

Back at their booth, Draco looked up at him, gaze still shuttered and wary, sleeve pressed against his bleeding nose. Something quick and sweet fell through Harry; he felt, abruptly, much better.

He set the butterbeers down and sat next to Draco, gently drawing Draco’s hand away from his face. He caught Draco’s chin in his fingers and tilted his head up, studying Draco’s face. Draco stared back at him, jaw set and defiant. He was definitely going to have a black eye; it was already swelling. His nose looked painful and red, too, though it had stopped bleeding, a crust of blood smeared above his upper lip, trailing down his chin.

Harry shook his head. “You shouldn’t let Neville rile you up.”

“I didn’t,” Draco said, immediately and untruthfully.

“He’s just a bit freaked out by the whole - thing,” Harry said. “I understand, I’m not crying myself to sleep about it. You don’t have to attack him for my sake.”

“I didn’t,” Draco repeated, looking annoyed that he had to lie twice in the space of one conversation. Draco didn’t like lying. It was something Harry had discovered, slow and surprised, the past few months.

He let Draco’s chin go, dropping his hands back into his lap. After a moment, he laughed, a little awkward, a little pleased.

“Shut up,” Draco said.

“My hero,” Harry said, and Draco scowled.

\---

Harry dreamed about the forest. He was walking in it again and he was frightened, as frightened as he’d ever been in his life. His parents weren’t with him and neither was Sirius and the world seemed desolate and wrong, but he’d do it anyway, he thought: for Ron and Hermione, for Hogwarts, for Draco. Then he got to the clearing and Voldemort was waiting, his features blurry like melted wax, and Hagrid was tied up, and on the forest floor - on the floor--

“Harry,” Draco said, shaking him, “Harry, Harry,” and Harry’s eyes snapped open. He took in a shuddering breath and realised his throat was sore, that he’d been yelling, and he seized Draco and hauled him in, holding onto him too hard, his knuckles white with the pressure.

“It was a dream,” Draco said, and Harry clawed at his shoulder, pulling him closer, pressing his face against Draco’s hair. Draco smelled like shampoo and sleep and Harry gulped him in, running his fingers up along Draco’s jawline. Draco had his hands clamped on Harry’s hips, reassuring and firm.

“You were dead,” Harry said.

“It was a dream,” Draco repeated.

“I know,” Harry said. “It was like - like with the Sectusempra.” He felt Draco shudder against him for a moment; he couldn’t stop talking, knew he was holding onto Draco too hard but couldn’t let go, not with the image of Draco splayed out on prickly ground with his ribs carved open hanging in front of Harry’s eyes. “But Voldemort was there and - and he’d done it to you and I was going to die, too, and I couldn’t save you--”

“Harry,” Draco said, and struggled free of Harry’s grip on him. He climbed on top of Harry and Harry leaned up on his elbows, their foreheads bent together in the dim light -- the light of Draco’s wand, Harry realised, rolling on the bedside table. “It’s okay. It was a bad dream.”

“Yeah.” Harry licked his lips. “Was I screaming?”

Draco hesitated, then nodded.

Harry made a face, looking past Draco at the dorm hangings. “Everyone heard, huh?”

Draco shook his head. “I put a silencing charm on the curtains when you started mumbling,” he said. “It took me a while to wake you, that’s all.”

“Oh,” Harry said. “Thank you,” and for a moment they looked at each other, almost awkward with the initial terror of the dream fading away. Some part of him still recoiled at the idea of comfort from Draco Malfoy. And sometimes he didn’t know what to do when Draco called him by his first name, in that low, worried way, almost tender. He licked his lips.

Draco said, “You want to get up? We could go raid the kitchens or something.”

“What time is it?”

“Bit after two.”

Harry shook his head.

“Okay,” Draco said. “You want to try and sleep again?”

Draco looked tired, face bleary with sleep, dust caught in the corner of his eye. Harry reached up to swipe it away with his thumb but said, a little guilty, “Not yet.”

“Okay,” Draco said again.

“Will you talk to me a bit?”

“Yeah,” Draco said, and lay back down next to Harry. Harry turned onto his side and they curled up, Draco’s knees tucked between Harry’s, Harry’s hands resting on Draco’s chest. Draco reached forward and idly thumbed at the sleeve of Harry’s t-shirt, then yawned. “What do you want to talk about?”

“I don’t mind,” Harry said and then, generous because he was keeping Draco up, “Have you heard from Pansy lately?”

“Mmm.” Draco wriggled in a little closer, heaping the blankets up around them. “Yes. She’s got a promotion.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “That didn’t take long.”

Draco sounded surprised. “She told you about it?”

“Over the summer,” Harry said. “She said she was angling for one.”

“I always forget that you guys hung out,” Draco said, sounding mildly discomforted.

“Well, it wasn’t my choice,” Harry said. “She just kept coming round.”

“Right,” Draco said. “She said you were always sitting grumpily in a corner. Imagine my surprise.”

Harry shifted, a little uncomfortable, but a thought occurred to him, something he wanted, so he said, “I was missing someone.”

Draco got the same shocked, embarrassed look as always, and in the strange wandlight Harry could see his cheeks gone pink. “Right.”

“Anyway, she was kind of interesting,” Harry said casually. “She told me some stuff about fifth year.”

Draco’s eyes narrowed. “Did she.”

“Dropped some hints,” Harry agreed. “About, like - you and people you might have had crushes on--”

“Noo,” Draco said, groaning, and turned to bury his face against the pillow. “No, Potter, I’m not talking about this with you--”

“I had a very scary dream,” Harry reminded him. “I need to be comforted.”

“No, Potter,” Draco said, “you’re pandered to enough, you don’t need me joining your hordes.”

“You can lead my hordes,” Harry said, trying to wriggle around so he could catch a glimpse of Draco’s face against the pillow. “Anyway, you’re basically admitting it.”

Draco turned his head very slightly, peering at Harry with one eye. “I am not.”

“You are,” Harry said. “It’s okay that you had a crush on me in fifth year, Malfoy. I bet you had a crush on me for _years_ before that, it was just you finally had a name for it--”

“I did _not_ ,” Draco hissed, half-sitting up in his indignation. “I didn’t! It was just you came back all -- all dark and filled out and--” Harry cracked up. Draco shoved furiously at his shoulder. “Shut up! Shut up!”

“You’re so obssessed with me,” Harry told him, and Draco glared.

“I’m not,” he said, trying for haughty and failing miserably, “I just - it was purely physical--” which made Harry laugh harder, and Draco finally gave in, dropping reluctantly back down on the pillows and making a rueful face.

“You weirdo,” Harry said, when he could speak again. He rubbed his nose against Draco’s forearm. “You didn’t act like you had a crush. You kept teaming up with Umbridge.”

“It seemed like the best way to get your attention, at the time,” Draco said, and Harry laughed again. “Now I see I should have just - joined the Dark Lord a little earlier.”

“Oh, yeah,” Harry said, realising. “You did get my attention, then.”

“Mm,” Draco said. “I wasn’t really in a place to relish it.”

“Yeah,” Harry said, quietening. Draco reached out and brushed his fingers against his wand and the light went out, and Harry lay back on the pillows, let Draco curl up half on his chest. He stroked his fingers through Draco’s hair absently. 

“You okay?” Draco murmured, and Harry made an agreeable noise. Draco yawned again, rubbing his nose against Harry’s t-shirt.

After a moment, quiet, Harry said, “Pansy also said fifth year was when you wanted to be a rockstar.”

“Shut up, Potter.”

“Did you write songs about me?”

“Shut _up_ , Potter,” Draco said, and Harry laughed quietly, drifting back into sleep.

\---

It was a bad night. He woke up again later sweating and shivering, terrified, green light flashing before his eyes and Ron’s dead body, Hermione’s dead body, Ginny’s, Draco’s, and tried to sit up but Draco grabbed at him, still mostly asleep, pulling him in with a deceptively strong arm around the waist.

“I,” Harry started, and Draco made a sleepy noise and tugged Harry in, turning his head blearily so he could kiss Harry. His eyes were closed.

“S’okay,” he said, voice thick with sleep. “Sweetheart. C’mere.”

“Yeah,” Harry said, shaking, and curled up against Draco, head tucked under Draco’s chin.

The next morning, between a whispered argument about whether Draco could have the Invisibility Cloak to sneak out of the Gryffindor dormitory, Harry said, “And - and I think we should spend Christmas together.”

Draco blinked at him. “All right.”

\---

They’d barely gotten back from Hogwarts before Draco sent him out for supplies - “Kreacher’ll sort the food out,” Harry had said, but Draco had rolled his eyes and said, “There’s much more than _food_ , don’t you know _anything_ ,” - and so Harry had been sent into the Christmas shopping crowds at Diagon Alley with a long list in Draco’s careful handwriting, tracking down each stupid finnicky item. He stopped to have mulled wine at The Leaky Cauldron with Ron and Hermione, moaning about it. Ron offered to have him back to the Burrow for dinner if he needed a break from, “you know, Malfoys.”

Harry had shaken his head without really thinking about, but when he went back home, list completed, he ended up hesitating on the threshhold. It felt as though Grimmauld Place didn’t belong to him all of a sudden, as though there hadn’t been a riotous year of his friends living and loving and throwing terrible parties in the place. But it wasn’t like it had been with Sirius, either, malignant and filthy. It felt polished, new, almost cold. Harry knew, as he stepped through the suddenly longer corridor, footsteps ringing out on smooth wood, what he would find in the living room before the door swung open.

There was a crackling fire and the books lining the shelves looked as though they’d been dusted, the liquor cabinet sparkling clean and recently filled, warm inviting amber liquids in crystal decanters. A record was playing a scratchy tune from long ago, and the couches seemed to have shifted colour, deep inviting reds and greens. And by the fireplace, in the softest armchair, Narcissa Malfoy regarded him coolly, a letter lying open in her lap.

“Mr Potter,” she said.

Harry felt his jaw clench. He’d agreed to this, he reminded himself. He’d known it was the price he had to pay. He dropped his bag on the floor, took ridiculous pleasure in the fact that it looked slumped and out of place and untidy in the beautiful, inviting room, and that Narcissa looked annoyed but didn’t say anything about it.

“Hello,” he said. He wasn’t sure what to call her. _Mrs Malfoy_ was too polite. _Malfoy_ would always be someone else. And he didn’t think he’d ever be like Pansy, calling her _Narcissa_. He said, curtly, annoyed, “The place looks nice.”

Narcissa looked blankly confused. “Yes.” Then she sneered a little and said, “Thank you for inviting us into your home.”

“I didn’t mean--” Harry stopped, rubbing the back of his neck. This wasn’t what he’d ever thought meeting someone’s parents would be like. Ron had been in nervous hysterics before he properly met Hermione’s parents, when they’d gotten them back from Australia, and then they’d just thought he was charming and a little eccentric and Ron had swaggered around swollen with pride.

Somehow, Harry thought dryly, he didn’t think he’d be charming Narcissa anytime soon. He was having a hard enough time fighting down the migraine that wanted to rise at the sight of her.

They regarded one another in cool silence for a moment, before Harry remembered that he’d been talking, and gritted out, “You’re very welcome, of course.”

Narcissa smiled at that: not appeased, but politely amused. And she said, like awarding a point to an opponent, “I believe Draco is in the kitchen.”

“ _Right_ ,” Harry said, relieved, and marched across the living room and out the other doorway, closing it firmly behind him and resisting the urge to lean against the hallway and catch his breath for a moment. It was stupid. _Stupid_. Hermione thought he would grow out of the whole Narcissa thing and Draco looked upset every time it occurred to him, and Harry was trying his best, but it was hard and strange, having her in his house.

After a moment, though, he realised there was more music coming from the kitchen: a Muggle song, one he recognised this time. There was a blare of trumpets, and underneath the music, a low, distracted voice singing along. Harry rubbed his hand through his hair again. This time he was smiling.

He went on into the kitchen.

“Invest a _dime_ ,” Draco was carolling, “and - dah de dah de dah, and ease my _miind_ \--”

“Hello,” Harry said, amused, and Draco whirled around, pink-cheeked and then, after a moment, laughing.

“Hello,” he said. “Look what I got you,” and Harry looked, laughing now too, coming forward to catch Draco around the waist and drag him forward, hugging him a little while Draco squirmed and grinned at him, cheeks flushed.

“You got me a Christmas Tree?”

Draco nodded. “It was a bastard to get in here. The house didn’t like it at _all_. It kept trying to shrink the ceiling on me.”

“Where did you get this from?”

“I ordered it from Diagon Alley, Potter,” Draco said, rolling his eyes. “And then they delivered it. But I had to drag it through here on my own - Mum was no help at _all_ and that creepy house elf seems to have forgotten what a Christmas Tree is, he kept looking hopeful and asking if we were going to have a Muggle Bonfire -- not that wizards don’t have bonfires, you understand, a Bonfire of Muggles--”

“Oh, is that what you guys normally do at Christmas?” Harry asked brightly, and Draco hit him over the back of the head. 

“I hope you appreciate the struggle I’ve been going through,” he said, “because then I went up to the attic, which is _disgusting_ , you should be ashamed, and it took me forty minutes of searching and I think I inhaled at least three spiders, but - there!” 

He nudged triumphantly at a giant wooden chest.

“Is that for… its Christmas Tree babies?” Harry asked blankly, and Draco made another amused, exasperated noise.

“It’s the Black Family decorations, of course,” he said. “Don’t your Muggles do things like that?”

“Oh,” Harry said, realising, “yes, I suppose,” because the Dursleys had had a box of ugly baubles that Dudley decorated in kindergarten, and some truly hideous plaster things that Maude had sent them, and then little wooden engraved figures from Petunia’s parents - Harry’s grandparents - that he’d always sort of liked but never been allowed to touch, or even look at too closely. He hadn’t thought about wizards having them, though.

He knelt down now by the box and heaved it open, reaching in for the first thing he could take and -- “Ow!” he said, astonished, jerking his hand out; there was a little fairy on a hook there with its teeth sunk into his finger and a ferocious scowl.

“Oh, look,” Draco said, as fondly as though Harry had instead pulled out a tiny slumbering kitten; he plucked it off Harry’s fingers, holding it by the back of its gossamer wings as it struggled and squeaked out insults. “I used to love these, when I was a kid. One time I hid one in Dobby’s bed.”

Forcibly turning his mind away from what a truly horrible little brat Draco had been, Harry said, “That’s a bit cruel, isn’t it? Forcing them to be Christmas decorations?”

“They’re not _real_ , Potter,” Draco said, standing up; he took the hook and carefully hung the fairy up on a branch, where it fluttered its wings and glowed different colours. “They’re just toys. Wood and paint and a charm.”

“Why would you want toys to bite you?”

“I don’t know,” Draco said absently, reaching back into the box, “why do Muggles want to keep burning bits of plastic in their beds?”

Harry sighed. “Hot water bottles, Draco. The word you’re looking for is--”

“Oh, look,” Draco said, and drew out long threads of tangled gossamer, silver and shining and so soft when Harry touched them. Draco, eyes lit up, said: “It’s Unicorn Mane - not the real stuff, of course, but it’s pretty, isn’t it? An Ollivander product - not the one you’re thinking of, a cousin,” and he and Harry wound it round the tree, so that it looked as though the tree was part quicksilver, gleaming in different ways where the light hit it.

There was more: snowglobe baubles that played twinkling little tunes when touched with dancing figures inside; pink and periwinkle blue butterflies that, when released from a small box, flew to perch at the end of each branch and would occasionally flit about the tree, swapping places; a range of Christmas crackers that were slung, Draco said, between the branches and pulled on Christmas Day; little figurines of nearly every animal Harry could think of, and many he’d never heard of, and all of them mobile; several creepy looking snakes in Slytherin green and silver who wound their way round the branches and disappeared, to Harry’s distate and Draco’s delight.

Towards the bottom of the chest he found a little red velvet pouch, strangely heavy; when he untied it and tilted it down, two solid letters fell onto his palm, both with shining chains of silver to hang them on the tree. _R_ and _S_. Harry looked at them for a long moment.

“Mm,” Draco said, touching one lightly. “Cold iron. They’re protective charms.”

Harry’s head felt a bit numb and heavy. “They didn’t work very well,” he said.

Draco touched his arm and then stood up, hanging the letters on the branches. “Cheer up. They’re only decorations. They probably did their best.” He took a step back and looked at the tree, face pleased and hungry at once. “It looks good.”

Considering, Harry said, “Are there Malfoy family decorations?”

“Locked away in the Manor somewhere,” Draco said. “Yes.” He shrugged his shoulders.

“Maybe we can get them back,” Harry said. “Surely the Ministry wouldn’t want anything with them.”

“Maybe.” Draco changed tack, turning to Harry and demanding, “Did you pick up the crowns I wanted?”

“Yes, Malfoy, I got everything on your weird exhaustive Christmas list, it took me _three hours_ ,” Harry said. “You’re spoilt, I hope you know that.”

Draco grinned at him. “I know that,” he said. He hesitated, then said, “My mum’s in the--”

“I know, I ran into her.”

“Okay.” Draco watched him, quiet and waiting. 

Harry said, “I’m trying,” and watched Draco bristle and then sigh and settle down.

“I know you are,” he said, and touched Harry’s arm again; he was always doing that, now, he touched Harry thoughtlessly and constantly, like he just wanted to reassure himself that Harry was there, but also like it was just the way he was made, someone grabby. Harry loved it. He felt embarrassed by how much. Draco looked at him, and then smiled, quick and pleased: “It’s okay. Most Christmases she gets tipsy and passes out after dinner.”

“I’ll look forward to that,” Harry said.

\---

They had a strained dinner, helped only when at one point Narcissa looked at the clock and said, “Ah, I have an appointment with my attorney. Excuse me, boys,” and stood up. Harry wasn’t really sure whether an appointment with an attorney at 8pm on the 23rd of December was something wizards and witches typically did, but he breathed out anyway when he heard the front door close.

Draco looked at him, eyebrows raised, and said, “Well done.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Shut up.”

“Well, you handled that - passably,” Draco said generously, and Harry laughed.

“I don’t think I spoke,” he said.

“Mm, I know. Very good imitation of the handsome surly type,” Draco said. “You’re not quite as good as Krum was--”

“ _Krum_?” Harry said, disgusted.

“-- but you’re getting there,” Draco allowed. “Strong, silent type, huh, Potter? Just going to sit there glowering like an ill mannered buffoon with your shirtsleeves rolled up?”

Harry stayed quiet, tilting his head and considering. Sometimes Draco decided to criticise Harry because it amused him, and because he was good at it. Sometimes he was genuinely mad. Sometimes it was hiding something else. Harry was getting better at working out which was which.

Draco turned away and dipped one long finger in the remains of Harry’s custard, sucking it off thoughtfully.

“Right,” Harry said, and went for him.

Draco gasped and wound his arms around Harry’s neck and they broke the chair, Harry thought, maybe, he wasn’t paying a lot of attention, Draco arching up under him on the cool floor, and then Draco shoved him off and said, “C’mon, I, a bed, not in the _kitchen_ ,” and instead they made it to the hallway floor, which was quite impressive, and not a bad record for them.

Afterward they just sat there, half-naked, Harry with his legs half-folded over Draco’s lap and panting. Draco’s hair was falling in his eyes. He looked dazed and pleased. He looked - and Harry remembered to tell him, because Draco liked things like that, liked compliments, swiping his fingers over Draco’s jaw, “You look nice.”

Draco looked at him, mouth twitching.

“If Kreacher finds us here,” he informed Harry distantly, “I shall die,” and Harry blanched and hustled Draco up to his room.

They lounged around for a while. Harry wrote letters to Ron and Hermione, asking what they were doing on Boxing Day; Draco was doing something bizarre with some of the streamers he’d made Harry buy and humming _Good King Wenceslas_ at a slightly rabid pace. Harry snuck looks at him when he was sure Draco wasn’t looking, or else he’d get all blotchy and embarrassed. 

“What do you normally do on Christmas Eve?” he asked finally, sprawled on his stomach on the bed and looking up at Draco.

“Mm, the usual,” Draco said, voice absent, eyes fixed on his weird streamer thing. “We light the Yule Fire and sing down the trickster fairies--”

“What?” Harry said, startled.

“Sacrifice the unworthy souls to the great dark--”

“Oh, you’re lying,” Harry realised, and Draco started laughing, putting down his streamers.

“I don’t know,” he said. “The normal stuff. Usually Mum would have forgotten to get my father something and would have to go running out at the last minute. Sometimes if I whined all day I’d get to open one present before I went to sleep.”

Harry rolled over, annoyed, and mitigated that annoyance a bit by putting his head in Draco’s lap. Draco’s hand went to his hair almost immediately, carding through it, tender. Draco said, voice low and warm, “Merlin, your hair really is frightful. Is there nothing that can be done?”

“They tried shaving it off once,” Harry said, “but that didn’t work.”

“No,” Draco said, with an elegant little shudder, “I can’t imagine having to see your big bald head being much of a comfort to anyone, either.”

Harry smiled up at him.

“What did you do on Christmas Eve?” Draco asked. “Did your Muggles let you do anything?”

“Not really,” Harry said. He felt stupid talking about the Dursleys. He never had anything to say. It was a boring childhood.

Draco looked down at him, face quiet and unreadable. His fingers paused in Harry’s hair for a moment.

“It’s fine,” Harry said. “It was kind of funny really. In second year they sent me a toothpick.”

“Yes,” Draco said, voice low and deadly, “that’s hilarious, that is.”

Harry closed his eyes. “I got other stuff,” he said. “It’s - don’t,” and he butted his head back against Draco’s fingers until, after a moment, Draco started combing through again.

“Tell you what is a wizarding tradition,” he said offhand, “Boxing Day Quidditch Match,” and Harry said, “Oh, _yes_.”

\---

The next morning they slipped down to the kitchen together to eat bacon and eggs -- waiting for them, as Kreacher seemed to have abruptly remembered his job -- and Harry yawned into his tea while Draco flipped through the _Daily Prophet_ , occasionally scoffing to himself.

“They’ve got photos of you and Granger here,” he said at last.

“Mm,” Harry said, yawning hugely. “I had a drink with her last night. Do you think we should have brought Monster back with us?”

“I think the Ministry are just looking for an excuse to put me in Azkaban, so no, thanks,” Draco said dryly. “Look. They reckon you’ve stolen Weasley’s girl.”

Harry looked over at it vaguely. “He was there, too.”

“But they’ve cropped him out of the pictures,” Draco said, nodding wisely. “It all makes sense, according to this writer. _The hero gets the girl_.”

Harry reached for more eggs.

“If you leave me for Granger,” Draco said, laughing a bit now, “I will give a tell all interview to Rita Skeeter about what you’re like in bed. And it will _not_ be flattering, Potter--”

Harry yawned again, jaw cracking. “What would you say?”

“Well, to start with, you’ll cry every time,” Draco said. “Obviously.”

“Obviously,” Harry agreed.

“Then there’s the fact that once you called out Professor Slughorn’s name,” Draco went on dreamily, “I think I’d dwell for several paragraphs on this - the betrayal, you know--”

“I thought Skeeter was writing it?”

“Don’t be stupid, Harry, if I gave an interview like that _everyone_ would be writing about it. Perhaps something about liking watching yourself in the mirror at the same time - Quidditch players, you know, they’re _known_ for it--”

“Known for what, darling?” Narcissa Malfoy said, sailing into the kitchen perfectly dressed and dropping a kiss on the top of Draco’s head. Harry tried to choke on his breakfast and glare at her at the same time, with not particularly good results.

Draco looked unbothered. “Terrible salaries,” he said. “Potter and I were discussing career paths. It’s all very well if you get to the top of the league, but even _then_ you only work certain seasons, and it takes a lot of doing to get there.”

“Indeed,” Narcissa said. “Oh, Draco, I really hope you’re not considering a career in _sports_. You know you can do much better than that.”

Draco, who up until very recently, Harry knew, had resigned himself to being an Assistant Shopkeeper at Borgin and Burkes, sipped his tea and said quietly, “I know, Mum.”

Narcissa’s gaze drifted over to Harry, all the warmth of it extinguished. “Mr Potter.”

Harry smiled bitterly at her.

“Right,” she said. “Well, Draco, I’m going to meet some people today. I’ve had good news, you might as well know - there’s talk about getting the Manor back.”

Draco’s head jerked up. “What?”

“My lawyer is very good,” Narcissa said, with a quick, spiteful sort of look at Harry, as though he’d ever implied otherwise, and then she smiled at Draco. “It will be a long, drawn out process. I expect it will take some years. But I believe it may be successful.”

Draco licked his lips, rubbing at the back of his neck. “That would be…” He trailed off.

Narcissa jerked her head in a nod. “Well. It will be work to get it back, and then work to get it habitable again. Years of being unlived in and before that…” She stopped, and Harry thought about the Manor as he’d last seen it and shuddered. He thought about Bellatrix. He thought about Hermione screaming. The tea tasted strange and bitter in his mouth: it wasn’t tea, he realised slowly, it was adrenaline.

“Harry,” Draco said, urgent, and Harry realised he’d knocked his cup over. Draco reached out: “Harry--”

Harry stood up, chair scraping back hurriedly. “Good luck with that,” he snapped at Narcissa, “I - really, I wish you the best, I--”

“You’re terribly ill-mannered, Potter,” Narcissa said, voice silky-soft. “What were your parents thinking when they raised you? Oh, wait. I remember.”

“ _Mum_ ,” Draco said; he was standing now too, wild-eyed. “Both of you, quit it--”

“It’s fine, I’m leaving,” Harry said, and stormed out of the house, Apparating away and then walking a long way over lonely moors.

\---

Draco found him about two hours later.

“You could have come somewhere a bit easier to get to, you know,” he grumbled, once he’d finished a joyful reunion with Monster, who still got excited everytime she saw Draco. Draco let her give him one last exuberant headbutt that sent him staggering into a snowdrift before he climbed up to sit on the fence next to Harry. “It’s so cold.”

Harry didn’t say anything. Hogwarts’ grounds were covered in snow, and Hagrid’s hut behind them looked as though it would buckle under the weight of it at any moment now. But it was good, dazzling white and clean, nothing like the murky shadows of Malfoy Manor.

Monster rolled joyfully underneath them, baring her belly. Harry sighed, reaching into the bucket Hagrid kept handy and flicking her a gobbet of meat.

“You’re an embarrassment,” Draco told Monster absently, and then: “Potter--”

“Leave it.”

Draco rubbed his face with his hands. “I should take Mum back to the flat. It was stupid, thinking this would work.”

“ _No_ ,” Harry said violently, rounding on him, “I _want_ you there, you said you’d stay--”

“It’s only Christmas, Potter,” Draco said. “We--” and he looked a little embarrassed, but plowed on, “We spend most of our time together, you can handle Christmas--”

“No,” Harry said, and gave him a little shake, nearly unbalancing them both off the fence. “No, I want you. There.”

Draco stared at him, face gone hazy for a moment, and then his gaze sharpened and he said, “Well, I’m not leaving my mother alone. Not the first Christmas after - after Dad--”

“I’m not _asking_ you to!” Harry said.

“You can’t be in the same room as her!”

“I’m _trying_ ,” Harry said, “but she’s talking about the Manor and--”

“That’s my home!”

“Good for you!” Harry bellowed. “It’s where me and my best friends nearly died! Sorry that I’m not overwhelmed with excitement to see it again!”

Draco jumped off the fence, turning his back on Harry, which only served to piss Harry off more: Draco _always_ tried to do this, he always wanted to run away, and Harry jumped down too with the intention of grabbing him but Draco rounded on Harry first.

“You said _all that stuff_ ,” he hissed from between his teeth, “all of it, at Hogwarts, at the Sorting Ceremony, about how my mum had saved you and how - how it was time to stop divvying people up because of the war -- what, is that just for everyone else? It doesn’t apply to the _sacred famous Chosen One_?”

“I can’t help it,” Harry said, and turned around to kick the fence so he didn’t kick Draco. “I can’t! I -- you think I want to see the Forest every time I look at her? You think I want to remember dying every time - every time--”

“I know!” Draco said. “I know! I don’t know what to do!”

They stared at each other, breathless and shivering in the cold. 

Harry felt suddenly stupidly aware of what he was asking: that between his mother and anyone else, Draco would _always_ pick his mum, always, the Malfoys had proved that time and time again. And Harry was sulking like a child because he might not get Christmas with Draco. 

But he couldn’t turn it off: it wasn’t a matter of forgiving Narcissa. He wasn’t even sure if he was actually angry with Narcissa. He thought about Pansy, on the Muggle train: _Are you afraid of Narcissa?_

Harry said, voice scraping out of him so that it hurt, “If you think you and your mum should go and have Christmas on your own, you should.”

Draco swallowed, his thin, pointy face peaked with cold. “Right.”

“And we can - I don’t know,” Harry mumbled. “Whatever you want. See each other at Hogwarts, I guess. Or not, if…” He trailed off.

“Are you breaking up with me?” Draco demanded, voice gone high and upset, and Harry’s head jerked up and he said, “No!”

“You _sound_ like you’re breaking up with me,” Draco said, eyes bright and glittering with fury, and Harry shook his head, took a quick step towards Draco and then a quick step back.

“No, I’m just saying, it’s up to you--”

“What, if we break up?” Draco was suddenly fixed on that. “You don’t give a shit either way?”

“I love you,” Harry said roughly. “You know that. Don’t - don’t pretend like you don’t know that.”

Draco’s mouth opened, and then closed again. He reached out unsteadily, and Monster bumped her nose lovingly against his palm. He said, “I’ll tell my mum to back off.”

Harry swallowed. “Okay.”

“We can keep trying,” Draco said. “I can’t think of any other way to fix it.”

“Hermione - Hermione said time,” Harry said. “Probably.”

“Yeah,” Draco said. He paused, then added, “I don’t know why you have to come and sulk out here, a million miles away from everything. _And_ you can’t Apparate out.”

“I like it here,” Harry said.

After a moment, Draco said, “I know. I know you do.” He let out a breath that fogged up the air. “But let’s go back now.”

“Okay,” Harry said.

\---

Narcissa Malfoy was still in the kitchen when they got back, directing Kreacher: “This is absolutely unacceptable,” she was saying, “I realise it has been some years since you made a proper Christmas dinner but all the same,” and Kreacher was in spasms of masochistic joy that Harry didn’t want to examine too closely.

She looked up when they came in. “Draco, there’s snow in your hair,” she said, and then nodded coldly at Harry. But she said, voice almost curdling the words, “Mr Potter. Do you prefer your potatoes roasted or mashed?”

“Er,” Harry said. “Mashed.”

“Disgusting,” Draco said. “What’s wrong with you? Mum--”

“Yes, Draco,” she said, almost wearily. “Kreacher, you’ll have to do both.”

“Certainly, Madam!”

Narcissa continued, voice strained, “Do you have any preference over greens?”

“No,” Harry said. Draco gave him a look that was like daggers. “Er. Broccoli?”

“Kreacher will see to it,” Narcissa said. 

“Er,” Harry said. “Thank you.”

Narcissa nodded stiffly. “I will be in the library for some hours, if - either of you need me.”

“Thanks, Mum,” Draco said, slanting another quick look at him.

“Yeah,” Harry said. “Er. Thanks.”

Sirius’s murderer looked back at him with cool eyes. Harry did his level best to meet her gaze. It was no wonder, he thought suddenly, desperately, that Draco had turned out the way he had: no wonder you would believe the world revolved around you, when all of your mother’s morals and empathy did. Harry wondered what that would be like, the warm certainty that no matter what you did, your mum would be there.

He wondered what she thought of him. She’d told him she’d kill him, if he led Draco into danger. He believed her. He wondered what she thought of the way Draco looked at Harry sometimes, eyes sharp and intent and full of something that made Harry’s chest seize up. It wasn’t love, wasn’t anything as simple as that. It felt rather like Harry was being claimed.

“First, though,” Narcissa said, turning to Kreacher, “we shall see if we can turn this wretched kitchen into something serviceable--”

The kitchen had always been Harry’s favourite part of Grimmauld Place. But he didn’t protest, and Draco said hastily, “Yes, okay, well, we’ll just be off--”

“You _shock_ me,” she said dryly, and Draco laughed and seized Harry’s wrist, dragging him out of the room.

When they were in the warm living room, Draco looked at Harry, poorly disguised hope on his face. “Well,” he said.

Harry rolled his eyes. “Let’s get drunk,” he said.

\---

They didn’t get drunk: they got warmly, stupidly tipsy in the cosy living room, much nicer than it had ever been before, with Harry sprawled out on the couch and Draco sitting by it, leaning back against it, head tipped back to laugh at Harry, hair brushing Harry’s knees. They stayed there until dinner, when they tried to go into the kitchen and were chased away by a frantic Kreacher. Narcissa was nowhere in sight. Draco shrugged and said, “She has a demanding social life,” and they went up and ate sandwiches in the bedroom instead.

Draco got flirty when he was tipsy, all loose and lounging and he kept tipping against Harry’s side as though it was an accident, sliding an arm around him. He was clingier than usual tonight - the almost-fight from earlier, Harry supposed - and Harry laughed at him when Draco dipped his head, under the pretence of scratching the back of his neck, and then tried to stick his head up underneath Harry’s shirt.

“What are you _doing_ ,” he said, and rolled Draco underneath him, grinning down at him, Draco caged neatly under his body.

Draco laughed up at him, and then quietened a little, tilting his head to the side. He said, very neatly and quickly and staring at Harry’s right ear, “Do you want to fuck me?”

Startled, Harry said, “What?”

“You’ve never asked.” Draco’s voice was crisp and clear; not at all the fuzzy tipsiness of a moment ago.

“I don’t know,” Harry said. “I never - I didn’t think you wanted to. I like it,” and he found himself flushing, cheeks hot, because having sex was fine but talking about it was something else, “when you - when you fuck me.”

Draco looked at him then for a moment, pupils large from the alcohol. And maybe something else. “I know,” he said, and Harry made a small sound and leaned down to kiss him, slow and hot, their tongues slipping together. Draco’s hand was sliding up under Harry’s shirt, over his ribs. But when they broke away Draco said, insistent, “But you - you’ve fucked girls.”

“Yeah,” Harry said. 

“And you liked it.”

“Yeah. So?”

“So,” Draco persisted. He looked very embarrassed. “I don’t - have you never fucked a boy before?”

Harry hesitated, then shrugged one shoulder. “I - I mean, yeah. Seamus.”

For a moment Draco looked darkly furious, but he shook his head impatiently, emotion clearing. “So I - don’t you want to?”

Harry looked at him for a moment, Draco’s long limbs tense and his Adam’s apple dipping as he swallowed. Harry touched, with rough fingers, the long line of Draco’s collarbone. Beneath him, Draco shuddered and jerked.

“I never thought you wanted,” he said. 

“I want to try,” Draco said.

“Okay,” Harry said, and kissed him again.

It was strange to go properly, carefully slow with Draco: they never had, to start with, and even now it was usually only when they were feeling lazy, or drunk, or tired. It was different to go slow because Draco was so obviously nervous, tensed up and looking torn between a shiver and jerk every time Harry touched him below the waist; to be worried about hurting him. A couple of times he started to ask if Draco was sure, until Draco thwacked him across the head and said, “Get _on_ with it, Potter!” and Harry gave up, decided it was best to just distract him. He went down on Draco while opening him up, slow, gentle as he could be, and Draco jerked underneath him and cursed and fisted both his hands in Harry’s hair, tight the way Harry liked it.

“Okay?” he said at last, and Draco said, “I - yeah, yeah, do it,” and then cried out, grabbing at Harry’s shoulders, pressing himself up against Harry, close as he could get.

Draco said, “Fu-- _uck_ ,” through his teeth, and grinned up at Harry, breathless and flushed. “Why didn’t we do this ages ago?”

“Dunno,” Harry said, feeling a little overwhelmed: Malfoy was just so tight, and he was gasping and arching up and his long, slim legs went up around Harry’s waist like that was where they belonged; Harry pressed his forehead against Draco’s shoulder and moaned, Malfoy’s hands twisted up in his hair.

Draco palmed restlessly at him and said, “Harder, _harder_ ,” and then, “It feels good,” in a breathless, amazed voice. Harry set his teeth into Draco’s skin and cried out anyway, and hoped to _God_ that Narcissa really had gone out.

“Yes,” Draco said, almost wildly, and then he laughed, a short joyful burst that should perhaps have made Harry self-conscious but didn’t, and said, “Oh, I love you, I love you--”

“Yeah,” Harry said, hips jerking, and he nuzzled in at Draco’s shoulder and came, gasping and shuddering. 

Draco didn’t take much longer, spilling over Harry’s and his own stomachs, and they lay still and quiet, plastered to each other, until their breathing slowed and went back to normal.

“I’m so tired,” Draco said after a while, almost awe-stricken.

“Mm.” Harry gathered Draco in under his arm. Draco went, curling up at his side, not even the normal complaints about how oafish Harry was and how they needed to have a shower and bla, bla, bla. It was quite refreshing. Harry thought about it for a moment and then said, sleepy and smug, “You liked that.”

Draco hit him in the arm, just once. Harry pressed his mouth to Draco’s neck. He yawned.

“Where’d you get that idea from, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” Draco said, still sounding dazed. “I wanted it. I’ve been thinking about it. You said - you said--”

“What?”

“Earlier,” Draco said, a little sharply, as though he was about to get mad with Harry for not being able to read his mind or something. “At Hogwarts--”

“That I didn’t want to break up with you?” Harry said, trying to remember anything even vaguely sexy that had been said there.

“You said - I mean, I _knew_ ,” Draco said in a quick, cross rush, “of course I knew, you’re not particularly subtle, there was everything over the summer and then this past term has been - fine, I mean, just fine, so obviously I knew, and I know that you were kept in a cupboard and you don’t really know how to talk about human things--”

“What are you talking about,” Harry said flatly.

“You never said it, before,” Draco said, pink all over. “That you loved me.”

Harry blinked, considered. “Yes, I did.”

“No.”

“I’m sure I--”

“ _No_ , Potter,” Draco said, and laughed, looking agonised. “Look, it really doesn’t matter. It was nice. That’s all.”

Harry hesitated. “This isn’t going to be one of those like - bad boyfriend things--” and Draco laughed again, relieved now.

“No, you’re perfectly adequate,” he said, and ruffled Harry’s hair. “Even though your hair is awful. And you dress very badly.”

Harry nosed along the long, cool line of Draco’s neck. “I do love you,” he said, and Draco groaned. Harry felt stupid, but he wanted Draco to know, he didn’t like thinking that Draco might not know, or have to guess, so he continued: “I have for ages. I have since - since you sent me that stupid postcard.”

Draco peeked at him, a sweet, shy smile. “You have not.”

“Yes, I have,” Harry persisted, feeling supremely awkward about the whole thing. “It’s - I was just _confused_ for a while.”

“People are meant to have sexuality crises, Potter,” Draco said after a moment, and started carding his hand through Harry’s hair again. Harry though that, secretly, Draco rather liked Harry’s hair, but he knew better than to bring that up. “Not romantic ones.”

“Well,” Harry said, “I’m not in crisis now.”

“Mm,” Draco said, and then nodded towards the window. “Look. It’s snowing.”


	2. Chapter 2

**JUNE, 2004**

Ron came and found him just as Harry was about to pick up the new file.

“None of that,” he said firmly, dropping a mug on top of the file. Some cold, stale tea sloshed over the rim and made a sad little puddle on the cardboard. Harry eyed it, and looked up.

“What?”

“Everyone’s talking about how we’re going to plain run out of cold cases if you keep at it,” Ron said. “It’s six o’clock. It’s Friday. It’s time to come home.”

“I’m not that hungry yet,” Harry said, reclaiming his file and shaking the tea off it with a grimace. “And this one’s quite thin, look - I reckon I could crack it in a day or two--”

“It’s thin because there’s _no information_ ,” Ron said, exasperated. “Look. I don’t want to threaten you, but I will get my mum involved.”

Harry laughed at him.

“You may well laugh,” Ron said dourly. “Wait until you’ve received one of Mum’s Howlers in front of the entire Auror department. They won’t think you’re such a cool auror then, huh?”

“Ron--”

“Come _home_ ,” Ron said, bright eyes affectionate and concerned. “Come on. I know your life is terribly boring without Malfoy in it, but me and Hermione are still about.”

Harry felt bad. “It’s not that,” he said. “Anyway, you guys want time on your own sometimes too, I’m just trying to stay out of the way--”

“You’re not just anyone, though, are you, mate,” Ron said, and dragged Harry up from his desk. “Come on - let’s take the Floo to Hyde Park and walk from there, it’s lovely out.”

“Fine,” Harry grumbled, and let Ron sling an arm around his shoulders and guide him out. He supposed he had rather been hiding away at his desk more and more often over the last few months, getting takeout delivered there and only coming back to Grimmauld Place when he couldn’t keep his eyes open anymore, when it was easy to sink into his bed and not notice the empty space.

The only nights he didn’t do that were Tuesdays: when the portals in South Africa were lined up, and Draco was allowed to Firecall. Those nights Harry slipped out of the office at 4.30 on the dot. He still got takeout but had it delivered to Grimmauld Place and he ate it cross-legged in front of the fire, laughing at Draco’s indignant stories about the bunch of _morons_ in his cohort and the one old professor who kept dropping off to sleep while listening to their presentations.

Draco always looked happy, piqued and interested and gaze sharp, more focused than he’d ever been at Hogwarts, thriving in the study program. And it was only nine months: two weeks left and Draco would be back in Grimmauld Place where, Harry thought absently and firmly, he belonged. It was a good course, magic and law together, and it was famous for its secrecy, its intensive immersion in theory and spellwork. It would be useful to Draco, and Harry was glad he was doing it, he would just be - more glad when it was over.

He hadn’t seen Draco since Christmas, where Draco had been given a four day break. They’d spent most of it in bed, except for the long, irritating Christmas Day that Draco had insisted on spending with Narcissa, with Harry trailing after him like a bad mood.

Now it was early summer, the first weeks of June making everything in London seem softer and sweeter, hazy with pleasure. Harry was not in the best mood to enjoy it, but he tried his best to nod and smile as Ron wandered along beside him chatting. They’d been looking at houses again recently: Ron admitted shyly that he thought they might be able to put a deposit down soon.

Harry congratulated him with a sudden pang. “You know you can stay at Grimmauld Place as long as you like,” he said. He didn’t know how he’d feel when Hermione and Ron moved out. It was impossible to think of that room as anyone’s but theirs. “It’s yours too.”

“I know,” Ron said, and shrugged. “But - I don’t know. It feels like part of growing up, doesn’t it? Besides,” and he went red under his freckles, “I think we’ll probably - talk about having kids soon.”

“Wow,” Harry said, and Ron laughed, bright and shyly pleased. Ron and Hermione had married years ago, barely six months after Hogwarts was done, because Hermione had a sick grandmother and - she’d told him, quiet - because they thought the Weasleys needed a celebration of sorts, and there was only so much the new addition of Victoire could do.

“Well,” Harry said, and shook his head, faintly amazed. Sometimes it felt very strange that they were living weird, adult lives. Sometimes it felt obvious. It always felt good.

“Anyway,” Ron said slyly, “I’ll doubt we’ll be the only ones,” and Harry snorted and didn’t bother with a response. 

He probably didn’t need to. Ron had seen, as well as everyone else, how sweetly and easily Draco dandled Victoire, the way he’d curved over her crib when she was tiny, eyes bright and face naked with pleasure, the way he wandered about the house now when they visited with her on his hip, listening to her baby talk gravely and showing her the prettiest things in the garden, finding her the best toys, bright scraps that made her reach out and gurgle with joy. Harry had thought the greater Weasleys would never really warm to Draco, for his father, for Bill, but Victoire had changed everything, and Mrs Weasley now included Draco in her monthly round-up of baby photos for everyone.

Ron had seen all that, along with everyone; but Harry suspected Ron and Hermione had also watched Harry watching. Harry didn’t know what had showed on his face, but his heart had felt full to bursting.

“I think Hermione’s cooking tonight,” Ron continued, and Harry tuned back into him with a grimace.

“Is that a good idea?”

“Well,” Ron said. “Pansy and Ginny are coming over. Pansy said she’d supervise.”

“Oh, good,” Harry said, because Pansy was a surprisingly good cook, even if she did inevitably use a bottle of his red wine in every meal preparation, between adding it to the recipe and drinking it herself. He paused, though, and said, “Do you think Pansy and Ginny--”

“Shut up, Harry,” Ron said pleasantly, and Harry laughed.

“Okay,” he said, and they talked about work the rest of the way home.

When they got to Grimmauld Place and watched it squeeze its way in from its Muggle neighbours, Harry paused and then laughed. The windows of the place were almost shaking.

“PANSY MUST BE HERE ALREADY!” Ron bellowed as they opened the front door and stepped into the roar of music. “HERMIONE DOESN’T LIKE THESE GUYS - ABCD?”

“AC/DC,” Harry yelled back.

“WHAT?”

“AC/ _D_ \-- oh, never mind,” Harry said, laughing, and gestured Ron on into the kitchen. He’d make Pansy turn it down: he didn’t care what she said, _Chef’s rules_ was not a thing.

He was nearly in the kitchen when he heard the laughter. It was Pansy and Ginny and Hermione and someone else, a male voice, warm and thrilled, and Harry’s heart skipped a beat and he took the last few steps forward to lean in the doorway and see Draco twirl Pansy under his arm.

Harry felt stupid with happiness, like all of the boredom and loneliness and tiredness of the last few months drained away and left him heavy and overflowing with joy just from the sight of Draco. Draco was smiling and laughing down at Pansy in his arms, the two of them throwing each other around the kitchen and showing off. Harry’s chest felt tight and triumphant and Ron touched his shoulder lightly and moved into the room, dropping a kiss on Hermione’s head.

The movement made Draco look around, and then he beamed at Harry, the stupid unselfconscious grin that he only got rarely, even now. He let go of Pansy at once and almost flew to Harry, and Harry grabbed him and hoisted him into the air mostly by accident, spinning round while Draco laughed and clutched at his shoulders and yelled something Harry couldn’t hear over the music.

Draco yelled it again but Harry didn’t bother this time, setting him back down on the ground and then leaning eagerly up. Draco twisted in closer and they kissed hard, almost clumsy, Draco pressed up between Harry and the doorframe.

The music twisted abruptly down. “Well,” Ron said. “How come I didn’t get a welcome like that, Hermione?”

“Go away for six months,” Hermione said sweetly, and Harry laughed, breaking away a little, forehead resting against Draco’s.

“How are you here?” he demanded, and Draco shrugged, bent awkwardly but looking too pleased to move, one arm tight around Harry’s neck so he didn’t fall over.

“I finished my exams,” he said. “The rest of it was just admin and then their stupid pretentious graduation ceremony--”

“You _love_ stupid pretentious things,” Harry said.

“I was homesick,” Draco said, and smiled up at him, quick and sweet. Harry laughed and kissed him again.

“All _right_ , Potter, we get it,” Pansy said, looking bored. “And you’ve ruined the dance party, so--”

Harry flipped her off without looking up and felt Draco laugh against him, a breathless shudder. He broke away again to stare at Draco, drink him in: Draco solid and present and right here under Harry’s hands. Draco looked exhausted, now Harry was paying attention, deep shadows under his eyes and he was too thin, the way he always got when he was stressed. A mixture of the exams and the long, punishing series of Apparation points from whatever secret location his school was in in South Africa back to London. Harry ran his thumb down Draco’s cheek, watched Draco tilt his head to instinctively press into the touch, and resolved to drag him off to bed as soon as possible.

Not quite yet, though, or Pansy would kill him. Anyway, dinner smelled good.

“Are you - I’m so glad you’re back,” Harry blurted out, feeling oddly young and shy for a minute, and Draco reached for his hand and squeezed it.

“All right, Potter, calm down,” he said, and they went to sit at the table with the others. Ginny slapped Draco companionably on the back before she went back to hovering around Pansy and annoying her while she cooked -- Harry would have to talk to Draco about that, he knew what Ginny looked like when she was flirting -- and Hermione immediately started interrogating Draco about the program. Harry propped him up with his shoulder and Draco leaned back against him, dazed, and slung a leg over Harry’s, but Pansy handed him a glass of wine and he brightened up after a bit, talking quickly and easily.

Harry had heard most of the stories already but he listened anyway, thrilling at Draco’s voice, clear, not carried by thousands of miles and hundreds of spells. Draco kept one hand on Harry the whole time, as if worried that he was going to get away. That was fine. Harry wasn’t going anywhere.

\---

Pansy and Ginny presented the meals together, a long, seemingly endless series of courses that Ginny introduced with a fake French accent. Harry found it hard paying attention to anything that wasn’t Draco, but what he did notice made him think that the food was good and Pansy kept touching the small of Ginny’s back. When Ginny was occupied talking with Ron and Hermione and Pansy was checking on the next course, Harry leaned into Draco and murmured in his ear, “Do you think--”

“I know, I _know_ ,” Draco said, with the terrible thrill of someone who loved gossip lingering over something good. Harry laughed at him. “We’ll discuss it later.”

“ _Will_ we,” Harry said.

“Discuss what, Potter?” Pansy said sharply, and Harry held his hands up.

“Hey, it’s your mate talking, not me,” he said, but Pansy, too, was pleased with Draco for being home and she didn’t even bother turning the sharp look on him, just ruffled his hair and gave him an extra helping of pudding. Draco made a smug face at Harry.

“That backfired on you, didn’t it, Potter,” he said. Harry picked up his spoon and helped himself to Draco’s plate.

“Not really,” he said, mouth full.

He’d planned for weeks and weeks what he’d do when Draco was home - even had reservations ready for Draco’s official arrival date next week at Draco’s favourite restaurant. He’d planned the kind of fancy dinner that Draco loved and then maybe some music and then home to fuck for seven or so hours, and none of this - their friends all around, Draco heavy and languid with exhaustion against his side, the terrible music selection - had figured in. But he didn’t mind it now, and he found himself less desperate than he’d thought he would be. After all, it didn’t matter: they could do all of that next week, they could do it the week after, they could do it the month after. Draco was home now.

Draco turned to him at one point, mouth brushing Harry’s hairline, and said, “We can - go upstairs if you want--”

Harry shrugged. “If _you_ want.”

“I’m so tired,” Draco confessed. “I just want to - lounge around a bit and then go to sleep, can we do that?”

“Yeah,” Harry said, and slipped his hand under Draco’s shirt to rest against the warm small of his back. Draco yawned and went back to lazily debating magical legislature with Hermione.

Eventually, when Draco was yawning more than he was talking, Harry grabbed his elbow and heaved him up.

“All right,” he said. “We’re off.”

“I wasn’t--” Draco yawned. “I’m not done, I--” 

Harry took advantage of the next yawn to say, “Yep, okay, good night, all,” and even Pansy lazily laughed and waved at them, so he took it as blessing to half carry Draco up the stairs, Draco a warm weight at his side mumbling crossly in his ear about how handsy Potters were and how he’d always known Harry was no good.

“Yes, yes, you were a wonderful child,” Harry said, soothing, and Draco said, sleepy and satisfied, “I _was_.” 

Then he sat down on their bed with an _oof_ , dropping forward to rest his head in his hands. “I can’t move, Potter, you’ll have to bring pyjamas here.”

“Who says you need pyjamas?” Harry said, taking off his robes and draping them over a chair. He undid his tie, too, always vaguely surprised that it was there, but he’d had a public meeting with Shacklebolt today and the younger secretary was always tearfully begging him to dress nicely when there were press.

“Mm, you’d like that,” Draco murmured. Harry pulled open his drawer and shoved his tie in and then went to touch, instinctively, ritualistically, the way he had over the last nine months, just to comfort himself, the little velvet ring box tucked away in a hidden corner: only this time, Draco said, suddenly shrill, “Oh my god, are you doing that _now_?”

“What?” Harry said, genuinely confused.

“I’m not ready! I’m too tired!” Draco was wild-eyed and flushed, hair sticking up where he’d pulled his hand through. “Harry, I can’t pretend to be surprised!”

“Surprised about what?” Harry demanded, and then: “Oh my god, you know!”

“Well, don’t pull it on me when I’m this spell-lagged!”

“I wasn’t _going_ to,” Harry said, still too shocked and incredulous to really process what was happening. “I was putting my tie away!”

“Oh,” Draco said, and then went crimson and covered his face with his hands and groaned loudly. “Oh, fuck it all.”

“Did you - how did you - did you _know_?” Harry said.

“Yes, of course I knew, I’ve known for about two years,” Draco said, muffled and distracted-sounding. “I assume that’s when you bought it as you’re absolutely incapable of keeping secrets, which I normally like, it’s very comforting, I didn’t mean to - I wasn’t expecting it tonight, that’s all--”

“Well, I wasn’t going to _do_ it tonight,” Harry said, face feeling hot, heart pounding. “I’m not a complete idiot.”

“No, I know, I’m sorry,” Draco said, face still hidden. “I suppose I’d been wondering when you _would_ do it and then you were hovering over there where you keep it and - I’m really sorry,” he said, sounding suddenly miserable, and he looked up, though he wasn’t meeting Harry’s eyes. His face was flushed and his eyes were darting about the room as though looking for an escape route. “I had a feeling I’d fuck this up. I suppose it’s why I didn’t try and preempt you, though I - you know I would have,” he said, voice low, and Harry felt suddenly breathless and shivery all over, “only - only you already had it, and also, I’d have had to use an heirloom piece, and they’re not really your style. Lots of snakes, you know.”

“What?” Harry said dizzily. “You’re talking so much.”

“I’m very tired,” Draco said. “I don’t suppose we could Obliviate each other?”

“I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” Harry said. He stumbled forward without really knowing what he was going to do, and then sank to his knees in front of Draco, leaned forward and rested his forehead against Draco’s stomach. Draco’s hands went immediately, as Harry had known they would, to his hair, stroked through; one clasped the nape of his neck. “I can’t believe you knew.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t _know_ I knew. You’re very unsubtle. You go and look at it about twice a day.”

“I was nervous,” Harry said, “when I first bought it. I wasn’t sure if it’s - what you would want. I don’t know. We hadn’t really talked about it much. And then when you got into the course I didn’t want - well,” and his face was warm again, “I didn’t want to - to be engaged while we were apart. For that long. So I figured I’d wait. Although,” he added bravely, “I did think that it might work out well if you said no, like, my pride could recover while you were away. But I thought that was a bit of a cowardly reason to, uhm. To ask.”

“Yes, Merlin forbid you go the cowardly route,” Draco said, dazed with tiredness. His hand was trembling, very slightly, on the back of Harry’s neck. He swore quietly. “I really am sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologise,” Harry said awkwardly. “I’m the one who can’t keep anything secret, apparently.”

For a moment, Draco just looked fond. “I like that about you,” he repeated, before flushing again. “Anyway. I’m sorry. I - can we just go to sleep? I promise I’ll pretend to be surprised, when you ever - if you ever - I mean, in a month or a year or - if you don’t change your mind, which, obviously, it’s fine--”

“What?” Harry said, a little dumbfounded, and Draco made a tiny, grumpy sound and turned away, pushing off his trousers and climbing up the bed. Harry stayed still a split-second, and then used the moment Draco’s back was turned to grab the dumb box whose fault this entire thing was. He scrambled up the bed after Draco, ducked his head against Draco’s side. “I’m not going to change my mind.”

Draco sprawled back on the bed and let out a rapturous sigh, eyes closed. “My _bed_.” He squinted one eye open and said, so stiffly that he was probably feeling quite shy, “I know you won’t.”

“Yeah,” Harry said, and kissed Draco’s jaw, the corner of his mouth. Draco let out another little sigh and nuzzled in blindly against him. “I’m glad you’re home. I missed you.”

Draco sighed, arm up around Harry’s neck. “Mmm. Me too. I love you,” he added sleepily, which was how Harry knew he was mostly forgiven.

Harry grinned down at him. “Do you?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Will you do something for me, then?”

Draco squinted open his eyes. “Yeah. Does it have to be now?”

“No,” Harry said, “it can be in a couple of months. Will you marry me?”

Draco blinked politely at him. Harry waited and then, when he couldn’t wait any longer, held up the little box, popped the lid. Draco pushed up onto his elbows, then put his hand over his mouth, his eyes wide, and after a moment said, voice level, “That ring has a snake on it.”

“Yes,” Harry said, making a face. “Your mum insisted. But it’s only a small snake.”

“You went ring-shopping with my mum?”

“I thought I’d better,” Harry said. “It was awful. We pulled wands on each other three times. Once the shop owner had to separate us. You haven’t answered my question.”

Draco let his hand drop to his lap. He was smiling, slow and disbelieving and happy, eyes bright with it, exhaustion fading away in place of something fiercely glad and proud and possessive. He turned his face up to Harry’s.

“Yes, I have,” he said.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A brief note re Childrens: mpreg really isn't my thing, but a bunch of Potter-Malfoy kids running around clearly are, so the baby-creating process here is deliberately vague. Feel free to imagine mpreg if that's your thing, or handwave it like me: magic etc.

**AUGUST, 2018**

McGonagall got there a bit after one. Harry heard the door clang but it still took him a good five minutes before he could get there, throwing it open and saying breathlessly, “Hello, Professor, I’m sorry, come in. It’s all a bit chaotic, the summer holidays, you know--”

“Hello, Harry,” McGonagall said, which never failed to make Harry a little uneasy. He half-suspected that was why she did it. “There’s something in your hair--”

“There usually is,” Harry said, and shifted his current burden onto his hip, swiping his free hand through his hair. Some cobwebs, two real spiders that scurried away in fright when he shook them onto the floor. Quite tame, really.

“Now,” McGonagall said, peering over her glasses, “you must be little Scorpius.”

Harry shook his head. “Score’s had a fever all night. They’re at St Mungo’s now.”

Harry’s armful regarded McGonagall sternly. “I’m Lily.”

“Oh,” McGonagall said, and laughed. “My apologies. You look quite like a Scorpius.”

“No,” Lily said, curling in closer to Harry, her little hands clutching onto his jumper. Harry shifted her up in his arms, let her wind her arms around his neck so she could regard McGonagall more securely. She was a weird one, their Lily, and she proved it by saying with dour satisfaction, “I look like Dad.”

Harry grinned at McGonagall. “She does.”

“She has your hair, though,” McGonagall said. “And your eyes.”

“They’ve divvied it up between them,” Harry agreed cheerfully, moving aside so McGonagall could come in. “She doesn’t have my hair, though. It’s actually manageable, isn’t it, Lil? You could grow it long and plait it and have it as pretty as you liked, but--”

“No,” she said, eyeing him distrustfully. “My hair’s like Dad’s.”

“So it is,” Harry said. “Will you have some tea, Professor?”

“And biscuits, if you have them,” McGonagall said, following him down Grimmauld Place’s long hall. “Lily, you must be - six now?”

“That’s right,” Lily said. Another hard stare.

“Lil,” Harry said, “are you going to be nice to our visitor? Our very special visitor?”

Lily looked considering. People always thought she looked like Harry: the dark skin, dark hair, and her namesake’s eyes, but it was superficial, nothing compared to those cheekbones, her jawline, her rigid little body, the way she carried herself. And her hair did fall sleekly, easily managed, nothing like Harry’s. She was going to be tall, too. Harry had long since resigned himself to being eventually outgrown by all his children.

“We’re going to have biscuits?” Lily asked finally.

“That’s right,” Harry said.

“Which ones?”

“The best ones.”

Lily grunted in decision and held out her small hand to McGonagall to shake. McGonagall took it, looking greatly amused. Lily said, “S’nice to meet you. Welcome to our home.”

“She has better manners than you, Potter, when she gets around to them,” McGonagall said, amused. “Thank you, Lily.”

“She didn’t learn them from me,” Harry grumbled.

“Grandma says it’s very important to welcome guests politely,” Lily said. “But Dad says you can pick which guests you like.”

“Very fair,” McGonagall said, and then when they got into the kitchen and Harry had set Lily down to find the good biscuits, she asked Harry in an undertone, “What does she call you, then? If not Dad?”

“Also Dad,” Harry said. “Usually they’ll point to let us know who they’re talking to if it’s not immediately clear. And sometimes in plural.” 

Ron had been in hysterics for nearly an hour the first time James had told him, sulking and tragic, “No, I can’t come play with Rose. We _accidentally_ kept a pet gnome again and now the Dads won’t let us out.”

“Well,” McGonagall said, sitting down and smiling, “it’s nice to see you again, Harry.”

“Yes,” Harry said, and grinned at her. It was good to see McGonagall again, too: even now, her hair entirely silver, her face more lined than ever, she looked sharp and brilliant and exactly who he wanted on his side, every time. “I haven’t been able to get to Hogwarts as much as we used to, the last few years, or at least not inside the castle. Though I expect that’ll change soon.”

“This year,” McGonagall said, nodding. “Only a few months to go. Are you nervous yet?”

Harry made a face.

“Most parents are,” McGonagall said. “You’re not missing them preemptively, are you?”

“Sometimes,” Harry said. “But sometimes--”

“ _SIRIUS_!” James’s shriek rang through the house, and Harry’s head jerked up. He stood up instinctively, ready to excuse himself, but before he’d had the chance the door exploded open and a dark blur on a broomstick came speeding through the kitchen, cackling loudly. James followed a few steps behind, albeit on the ground, looking furious and close to tears. “ _Dad_! It’s my turn, it’s my turn with the broom, make her--”

But Sirius was showing off her latest trick, something that Harry was not allowed to be publicly proud of: she jumped up to stand on the toy broomstick, surfing through the air and guiding it with a few strategic taps of her feet, making faces down at her twin below. 

“What, James?” she called, her hair wild, eyes bright with mischief. “I’m sorry, I can’t hear you _all the way down there_ , try and speak up a bit--”

“Dad!” James cried, and Harry waited for a few lazy circles and then jerked his hand up to grab the broom. Sirius said, “oof!” and fell back to a sitting position on it, frowning down at him.

“Dad!” she said.

“You know the rules, kiddo,” Harry said. “If you guys can’t share, _I_ get the broom.”

“James is such a baby--”

“I’m _not_ , I’m just _fair_ and you’re a cheat,” James began furiously, and Harry said,

“Hey! Look, we have a guest!”

Sirius gave McGonagall a brief, interested look, before she decided trying to prise Harry’s fingers off the broom was a better use of her time. James was more nervous of McGonagall, looking over at her wide-eyed - he’d met her before, but he’d been too young to remember, and Harry thought that despite a range of private coaching sessions Harry had not approved of, James was pretty settled on being in Gryffindor - before his outrage won out.

“Dad, you gotta make her--”

“You’ve got three seconds to agree,” Harry said, “or I take the broom.”

“ _Dad_! She’s had it _all day_ \--”

“Have not, you liar--”

“One,” Harry said. “Two--”

“I hate you,” James hissed, and Sirius made an awful face at him. “Look what you’ve done now, why’d you have to bring him in here--”

“Three!” Harry said, and Sirius jumped off the broom, narrowly avoiding kicking Harry in the head and landing heavily on the kitchen bench, and said, “Fine, James can have it!”

“What?” James said, staggered by having won, and Sirius jumped onto the ground and slung an arm around her twin’s neck, started whispering into his ear at top speed. James looked very cross, and then reluctantly intrigued. “Okay,” he said, and then put out his hand. “Thanks, Dad.”

Harry wasn’t sure this was a good idea. “Maybe I’ll hang onto this.”

“But we stopped fighting, Dad,” Sirius said, wide grey eyes trained on him. “We’re sharing.”

“Yeah,” James said. “Come on, Dad.”

Lily lisped, “You have to follow through, Potter.”

Harry pointed a finger at her. “You,” he said, “need to stop that.” He switched the finger to James and Sirius, now hugging each other around the shoulders and peering at him, all solemn and sweet as though nothing terrible had ever crossed their minds. “You two - be good. I’m keeping an ear out. Professor McGonagall is keeping an ear out. If you’re not good, no Hogwarts.”

Sirius rolled her eyes, for which Harry didn’t really blame her. _No Hogwarts_ had been the standard threat in the house for a year now. It didn’t carry much weight anymore.

Harry sighed, and handed the broomstick over.

“Thanks!” James said brightly, grabbing it, and the two ran for the door. Harry rubbed his hands through his hair.

“There’s going to be a new disaster in about ten minutes,” he said dryly. “I need to learn not to give into them, I - Professor? Are you all right?”

McGonagall was staring after the departed twins. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears, but when Harry spoke she shook her head, took out a giant tartan handkerchief and blew her nose loudly. “A cold!” she said. “My apologies, Potter. I - it’s strange. It’s a little like having some ghosts run through the kitchen.”

Harry stiffened. “They’re my kids,” he said.

“Oh, Potter, I know,” she said. “You mustn’t take it the wrong way. Just - they look so much like you. Like your father. But the girl, she’s got that bearing that’s all - all Black. Something about the way she laughs, too.”

Harry sat down and offered McGonagall a reluctant grin. He’d worried about it, at first, but it had been over twenty years since his godfather died, and he spent every day of his life with his daughter. Sometimes it seemed like Sirius had been named after _her_ ; he was the memory, she the living thing. “I know.”

McGonagall sniffed and said loudly, “Although I suppose you know she won’t be able to keep that attitude for long, a girl with a boy’s name. You’ll have condemned her at school.”

Harry laughed. “It’s a weird name anyway. I think she’ll be all right.” He paused, then admitted, “I wanted to call them James and Lily. But apparently it’s ‘ _creepy_ to name twins after your dead parents, Potter’,” he mimicked, drawling, and McGonagall laughed. “And Sirius is an old Black name, so her grandmother was happy. And…” he hesitated, then shrugged. “I liked the idea of - of James and Sirius being together again.”

“Yes,” McGonagall said. “That’s very nice.” She cleared her throat and said, “Potter, I believe I was promised tea and biscuits.”

“Right!” Harry said, and jumped up to reclaim the biscuits from where Lily had been sneakily eating as many as she could in the corner.

\---

They’d just gotten everyone mostly settled down and McGonagall was telling Harry about the latest Defense Against The Dark Arts teacher - “It’s getting better, I really think we might be able to hang onto this one for three, maybe four years,” - when the front door banged open again and pandemonium reigned once more. Lily jumped up with a feverish look in her eyes, racing for the door, and James and Sirius came soaring through the kitchen again, having now hooked up Lily’s doll pram to the back of the broomstick so that Sirius could perch in that while James steered wonkily, with the result that they smashed into three cupboards and nearly broke the window, and Bartebly, over excited by all the activity, raced beneath them barking with Cat following haughtily behind.

“I wouldn’t have picked you to have pets,” McGonagall said, perfectly calm in the chaos, while Harry shouted ineffectually for everyone to slow down. He turned back to her for a moment, panting.

“I was outvoted.”

“So I see,” McGonagall said, and then Harry’s heart did the same funny, dumb twitch as always when he heard Draco laughing in the hall.

“All right, all right, settle down, hang _on_ , your brother’s ill,” Draco was saying, and came into the kitchen with two children and a dog hanging off him, and James and Sirius swooping in excited circles around his head. They were going to knock him out by accident any minute now. Draco met Harry’s eyes, exasperated and warm, and he said, “Here, you take--” and Harry reached out.

Scorpius was heavy with sleep, cheeks flushed and eyes glazed. Harry cradled him in close and murmured, “Hey, buddy. How you doing?”

“Saw a troll,” Scorpius reported, sleepy and with great satisfaction.

“That we did,” Draco said. He’d picked Lily up by her ankle and casually slung her over his shoulder, where she was writhing in silent delight.

“Is he--”

“Mild case of Doxie Flu,” Draco said. “I think it must be from the Manor, I’ll tell Mum she has to clean up again.” He looked tense. “It’s - she doesn’t use many of the rooms but when we’re over there, the kids run wild--”

“I know,” Harry said. “It’s okay. Doxie Flu’s not a big deal. Maybe I’ll go over and help her sort some of it out.”

Draco raised his eyebrows. “You could try,” he said, but he looked pleased, and he turned to Professor McGonagall with a smile. “I’m sorry, Professor, it’s a bit of a hectic day today--”

“I’m perfectly sure that nothing four children can do on their own will startle me that much,” McGonagall said, and favoured him with a smile, too. “It’s good to see you, Mr Malfoy.”

“ _Dad_ ,” Sirius said from above, where she and James had sped up into an agonised whirl of attention-seeking. “Dad, _look_ \--”

“Sirius,” Draco said, very calmly and without looking up, “think about what you’re doing, and how utterly stupid and dangerous it is, and then think about whether you want me to look.”

James and Sirius faltered in the air for a moment, and then sped out of the room, giggling.

“Shotgun,” Harry said quickly.

“Oh,” Draco said, upset. “No! I took Scorpius to St Mungo’s! It’s your turn!”

“Are you kidding?” Harry said. He cradled Scorpius in close; Scorpius was rubbing his fever-hot cheek against Harry’s chest and humming huskily to himself. “Score’s a _dream_. I’ve had them all morning. _And_ I said shotgun. Standard rules apply, you have to sort that situation out.”

“Ugh,” Draco said, and lowered Lily to the ground, where she lay panting and happy on the floor. Draco sat down. “Okay, fine. But tea first.”

\---

Scorpius fell asleep tucked in against Harry’s chest and Lily got distracted drawing her latest loving illustration of Monster underneath the bench, kicking her feet up idly, and upstairs was ominously silent. They’d pay for it later, but for now, Harry enjoyed the moment of calm to talk to McGonagall properly.

They talked about Hogwarts and the new students and the broken hearts Teddy Lupin had left behind; about Monster, who was becoming nearly friendly in her old age, and Hagrid, who insisted on still tending to all of Hogwarts’ wild things himself, even as his joints got rustier and his eyesight worse. McGonagall said, “I believe Rubeus will be there forever, you know. But I think we had better look to finding him an apprentice soon,” and Harry tried to ignore the touch of cold in his heart.

“Give Lily a few years,” Draco said, pouring himself a new cup. “That’d be good for her.”

“What?” Lily said, roused by her name. “Work with Monster?”

“That’s it,” Draco said, and then, _sotto voce_ , “Honestly, though, I’d take anything that means she’s going to work with dragons instead of marry them.”

It wasn’t quiet enough. “I _will_ marry Monster,” Lily said, satisfied, and Harry laughed as Scorpius shifted restlessly in his arms.

McGonagall smiled, and then said, “There’s the other thing I wanted to discuss with you two.”

“Yeah.” Harry exchanged an uneasy look with Draco, who was suddenly sitting up straighter, face gone pale. “I know.”

“The Board met,” McGonagall said, almost gently, “and decided that at this point there’s no reason for us to add any additional security--”

Draco made a rough, furious noise, and looked away. Harry put his hand on Draco’s thigh.

“Okay,” he said. “You know I’m okay with that. Draco, there hasn’t been anything for nearly a year--”

“We’re with them all the time,” Draco said, voice strained. “We can’t protect them if they’re at Hogwarts, and--”

“We know your children are targets for Dark Wizards, Draco,” McGonagall said, “but believe me, Hogwarts has always been and continues to be well-protected.”

Harry nodded eagerly. “Dumbledore always said there was nowhere safer than at Hogwarts.”

Draco laughed, short and abrupt. “Dumbledore was a fool and a liar,” he said.

Harry watched McGonagall’s face tighten as she tried not to react. Harry had given up on this fight about three years ago when Scorpius was born, when Draco had told him point-blank that he’d be damned if he’d ever name a child after Dumbledore. _I hated him in school and I hated him when he died and I hate him now,_ he’d said, eyes dark and mouth set. _And you should hate him, too, only you’re too loyal, so I’ll hate him for what he did to you as well._

“And he was wrong,” Draco continued.

“He wasn’t wrong,” Harry said. “They’ll be as safe at Hogwarts as they are here--”

“Because you were perfectly safe at Hogwarts, is that right?” Draco threw at him. “Didn’t have the Dark Lord attack you every couple of years? Didn’t spend your time running around with basilisks and werewolves and dementors and dirty hippogriffs -- _don’t laugh at me, Harry Potter, I’ll hex your_ \--”

“All right,” Harry said hastily. “Well, Hagrid doesn’t teach hippogriffs until sixth year anymore, so--”

Draco made an incredulous noise.

“Draco, you went to school at a particularly turbulent point of our history,” McGonagall said. “We’ve not had any incidents that are even slightly comparable in the past seventeen years.”

Harry grinned. “Except for the time Monster set the Quidditch Pitch on fire. And whose fault was that?”

“They will be as safe as we can make them,” McGonagall said. “They’ll be safer than they are in London, if you think about population and safety spells--”

“ _I’m in London_ ,” Draco said, voice nearly shaking.

“And the Board have agreed that if there are any incidents at all, no matter how minor, no matter how harmless, we will immediately look into the matter again.”

“And what if you have an incident that isn’t minor?” Draco demanded. “You’ll look into that after James and Sirius are -- are--”

“Draco,” Harry said, but he couldn’t continue; a wail rose up from above.

Draco shoved himself to his feet. “Excuse me,” he said frostily.

“I’ll get her,” Harry offered, but Draco had already stalked out of the room. Harry sighed, rubbed his eyes.

“He has no reason to be afraid,” McGonagall said.

“He does,” Harry said. “I’m afraid, too. But they’re smart kids, and Hogwarts is well-protected, and I don’t think Draco and I are almighty saviours. If something’s going to happen, it’s going to happen. I won’t take Hogwarts away from them out of fear.”

McGonagall coughed. “Does Draco believe that he’s an almighty saviour?”

“No, just --” Harry made a face and shifted Scorpius in his arms. “Sometimes I think he thinks I am.”

“Ah,” McGonagall said.

“The last time it happened, we were at the park,” Harry said. “It was Lily’s birthday. We were having a picnic. Sirius wandered off for a minute and - if James didn’t have that _thing_ about when she needs him--” He broke off and shuddered. “It was awful. It’s always awful. The first time we got attacked was two days after the twins were born, and it wasn’t even a Voldemort sympathiser or New Muggle Vengeance or whatever they’re calling themselves these days, it was a guy who used to be in _Gryffindor_. Who fought on _our_ side during the war. But he thought, because the kids were half Malfoy--”

“I know,” McGonagall said. “I know.”

“It scares the hell out of me,” Harry said honestly. “He’s not being unreasonable.”

“I know.”

“But I won’t take Hogwarts away from them,” Harry said again, shaking his head. Scorpius let out a little snore, and Harry laughed and shrugged his shoulders back, rising from the table. “Excuse me a minute, Professor.”

“Of course,” McGonagall said.

Harry went up the stairs and listened for a moment outside Sirius and James’s door: there were whispers, and a faint, ominous bubbling, but at least they weren’t fighting right now, and he grinned and moved on when he heard James’s clear peal of laughter, delighted and malice-free. Scorpius was shifting restlessly in his arms again, and Harry took him into the little room he shared with Lily. Grimmauld Place was big enough for them all to have their own room, but Lily had been devoted to Scorpius when he was a baby, and Harry suspected they’d share until they went away to school. Maybe longer.

He put Scorpius down in his twin bed, leaning down over him, absently taking his temperature. He was flushed but the potions the Healers had given him had to be working; his breathing was rhythmic and normal again, and he didn’t have the cough that had kept them up all last night. Harry stroked his fingers over Scorpius’s cheek and stood up.

“Daddy?” Scorpius croaked.

“Back to sleep,” Harry murmured, and set the mobile above his bed spinning. It had been a gift from Hagrid: roughly carved dragons swooped and shimmered, and great green trees stretched out their roots. All their kids had had it, from Sirius and James down, but Scorpius was the most attached.

Harry went on along Grimmauld Place’s corridor, and into the last little room at the end.

Draco was sitting in a rocking chair by the crib, with Esther in his arms, feeding her from the bottle. He looked up when Harry came in, quiet and watchful. Harry came over and knelt by the chair, watched their daughter drink.

“You think she’ll sleep again after this?” he asked. He reached over to stroke Esther’s tiny fist, and she immediately opened it, trapping his finger within. Harry stared, awed and reverent as ever.

“Hope not,” Draco said. “She’ll be up all night.”

“I think she’ll be up all night anyway,” Harry said, “it seems to be her favourite time of the day. By the way, Lily called me ‘Potter’ again today. You have to do something about that.”

“She has impeccable manners,” Draco said, “she takes after _my_ side,” but he wasn’t meeting Harry’s eyes. Harry looked up into Draco’s tired face, leaned up so he could catch the corner of Draco’s mouth, Draco’s rough stubble dragging against Harry’s lips.

“You think I’m overreacting,” Draco said.

“No.”

“But you’re fine with this?”

“No,” Harry said. He shrugged. “But short of locking them up forever, I don’t know what we can do.”

“There’s an idea.”

“They’d break out in the first week. They’d stage a revolution. And I’m too tired to predict it.”

Draco yawned. “I knew we should have stopped with the twins.”

“No, you didn’t,” Harry said, amused. 

When they’d first talked seriously about kids, they’d mutually and shockingly agreed on two: _I want them to have a friend_ , Harry had said, and Draco had said, _otherwise they’ll get spoilt_ , and then they’d both stared at each other and laughed. But when the twins had been born, Draco had only lasted three days before he said, “It feels like cheating, having two at once,” and Harry had said, relieved, “One more?”

“As soon as we’ve had some sleep,” Draco said, which turned out to be about five years later. By that point, James and Sirius were thick as thieves, the best friends Harry had ever seen or known - and he’d known the Weasley twins - and Harry had leaned over a sleeping, angelic Lily and said, “I feel a little sorry for her. She’ll always be the outsider.”

“Well,” Draco had said, grinning, dark circles under his eyes and prettier than Harry had ever seen him, and Scorpius came along in plenty of time to be Lily’s friend.

It was only Esther they hadn’t come up with an excuse for, though Harry was pretty sure she would be their last. It was exhausting. Draco had started making worried comparisons between himself and Mrs Weasley, which was alarming for a whole bunch of reasons. Sometimes it made Harry sad, but mostly he just relished Esther, even when she kept them up all night, the way he relished the whole enormous, ridiculous family he and Draco had somehow built. He thought, every now and then, about the Mirror of Erised, how crowded, how overwhelming it had been. It felt good.

When Esther was born, Draco had said, “No more naming her after people we know,” and Harry had said, “Fine, then no more weird planet names,” but as it turned out, Harry had had a grandmother on the Evans side called Esther, and Draco had said, slyly, “You know it means _star_ ,” and Lily made it sound so cute with the lisp.

Sirius and James called her, dismissively, The Baby, and Scorpius, for no real reason that they could work out, called her Wedding. Esther herself was quiet and alert, and the closest any of their children were to being blonde.

Now, Draco said, “Yeah, all right.” He rubbed his free hand across his eyes. “They’d kill us if we didn’t let them go.”

“Yeah,” Harry said.

“I just get--”

“I know,” Harry said. “Me too.”

“They should protect them, though. They should put new measures in place.”

“They will protect them,” Harry said. “They don’t need new measures for that. If they do, they’ll work that out. I think they’ll be okay.”

Draco looked away for a moment, face twisted and tormented. For a moment he reminded Harry forcibly of the summer they’d turned nineteen, Draco on the run even when he didn’t need to be anymore. Then he drew in a deep breath and turned back, coming back to Harry, the way he always did.

“That’s why you’re the Gryffindor,” Draco said.

“Hey,” Harry said, “soon I won’t be the only one. You ready to be outnumbered?”

Draco smiled, sharp-toothed. “That’s what you think.”


	4. Chapter 4

**OCTOBER - DECEMBER, 2023**

Lily’s letters home were always remarkably brief and instructive, unlike Sirius’s long, thoughtful updates on whatever she thought her parents should know - Harry was fairly sure it wasn’t half of what she was up to, and Draco said he thought it was perhaps a third - and James’s rambling, hasty missives that seemed to run purely on stream of consciousness and butterbeer. 

After she’d been at Hogwarts for two months, Lily made sense of McGonagall’s increasingly more rigid expressions when Draco and Harry went up to watch Qudditch games, and wrote: _Dear Dads: the other Gryffindors have asked me to ask you guys if you could maybe not come to as many games from now on, because Sirius and James get extra competitive if you’re watching and everyone gets so tired when the games go on past eight hours. James says it doesn’t matter that they’re still technically tied on Quidditch Cups because he’s going to win this year and next year but I think it’s unlikely, Slytherin beaters are better than ours and they still won’t let me join until second year (stupid). Also Orla Parkinson-Zabini has transferred from BoBatons (sp???) this year and Sirius and James are being even more stupid over her than usual, please make them stop, it’s so embarrassing. Also Orla told me that the reason her parents don’t live together is because they are just friends and she was a one night stand. What’s a one night stand??? Please write back soon because I have already told all the other girls in my dorm and they want to know what it is and there is only so long I can keep pretending to look mysterious about it. I asked Sirius and she laughed at me and then told me she would only tell me if I told her the Gryffindor Common Room password but James said I mustn’t. But maybe I will. But only if you don’t write back. Please give the enclosed to Scorpius. DO NOT OPEN. DO NOT READ. I WILL KNOW AND SCORE WILL KNOW. Lots of love. Lily xxxXXXxxx PS Oh and Monster is very good but Sirius and James are in trouble for sneaking out after curfew and flying with her again._

Harry rubbed his eyes, read it again, and thrust it to Draco, who scanned over it and groaned.

“We’ll deal wih it at Christmas,” he said. “You’ve got to go to work, you’ll be late.”

“I’ll---”

“I’ll drop Score and Wedding off, it’s fine,” Draco said, and Harry kissed him gratefully and fled.

\---

Sirius hefted her trunk up into the baggage compartment and lifted Lily onto her shoulders so Lily could do the same. Lily was still fretting over Monster; she was bad about it every year, ever since the Christmas the Dads had arranged to pay a mid-morning visit to Monster and not realised that it would give Lily the idea that Monster was lonely on the years they didn’t visit. Sirius was only half-listening now, petting lightly at Lily’s ankle and trying not to groan about how heavy she was. Lily had grown up a lot in three months. It was cool. But kinda sad. The Dads were gonna be all soppy about it, Sirius just _knew_.

She put Lily down on the chair and said affectionately, “Stop being such a baby, Lil. I’m going to go get some snacks, you want some?”

“Chocolate frogs,” Lily said immediately. “And if you see Hugo, send him in.”

“Uh-huh,” Sirius said, even though poor Hugo went red from top to toe every time Lily talked to him these days: a mortifying reaction for a third year. It was so bad Sirius didn’t even make fun of him for it anymore.

She popped her head into James’s compartment on her way down the corridor. He was sitting with the Gryffindor boys, most of whom eyed her with equal parts annoyance and respect, and one of whom - Sirius always forgot his name - gave her a cool look and then idly flexed his arm. Sirius rolled her eyes.

“James,” she said, “I forgot to write, are they picking us up at the station or are we going home with the Weasleys?”

“They’ll be there, it’s Lily’s first time back,” James said. “I think we’re doing Christmas Eve at the Burrow and then the day at the Manor.” Sirius groaned. “I know. It’s Grandma, she says her house elves can’t be transplanted--”

“The food isn’t even that much better,” Sirius said, exasperated, and James shrugged, _what are you going to do_. Sirius raised an eyebrow at him. “Shouldn’t you be in the Prefect Carriage?”

James flicked her off lazily and Sirius laughed and kept going down until she found the sweets tray. 

She had retreated to her room, furious and fighting back tears, when James was made Prefect and she wasn’t, until Draco had come and sat with her.

“It’s not fair,” she’d said bitterly, “he gets up to just as much shit as me, _and_ I’m doing better in class, it’s just because I’m a Slytherin--” and Draco had listened and nodded along.

When she’d run out of steam, he’d said, “Harry wasn’t a Prefect. I was. I don’t think it’s about being in Slytherin this time, you know,” and Sirius had stared up at him, angry and fraught. Draco smoothed his hand absently over her hair and said, almost as though he was figuring it out himself, “I don’t think they fancy their chances at controlling you,” and that had cheered Sirius up a bit.

That and James had been _so miserable_ about the whole thing, almost as bad as he’d been when they were sorted into different houses, even though they’d known that was going to happen since they were eight. Sirius had drawn a deep breath and written to Greengrass to congratulate her. It almost didn’t smart now when she thought about it.

And at least she got to roam about the carriage without any responsibilities beyond keeping a vague eye on Lily, who already seemed to be ruling her dormitory with an iron fist anyway and didn’t need much looking after. Sirius yawned, wandering on and trying not to get too cross about Christmas yet. It was stupid, having it at the Manor. Draco always got tired and upset, and then Harry got upset about him being upset, and also cranky about not being on his own turf because Harry - like James - was weird and possessive as hell. At least the Manor’s grounds were good. When they were kids, Sirius had loved the house itself, running wild over it and exploring, but she’d stopped in the last few years, after a couple of stories she’d been told, or overheard, or found out from other people at school. She didn’t like thinking about what had used to happen at the Manor. 

A door slid open, and Sirius froze in place when Orla came out, looking perfect and put together as ever. The most Sirius could manage was _elegantly dishevelled_ , and even that tended to happen only once a year by luck or chance, and only on days when she barely left her room. 

All the same, she tried to lean casually against the wall, curling her fingers through her hair and lifting her chin up in greeting. “Oh, hey, Orla.”

Orla looked faintly amused, as ever. _Don’t worry about it, it’s her parents_ , Draco had written to her when she complained about it, _pure genetics, the poor girl never had a chance_. “Morning, Sirius.” She didn’t have a French accent, but there was something about her English accent, the way she drew out vowels. It was thrilling. It was perfect.

Sirius rumpled her hand through her hair again and said, “Looking forward to the hols?”

“I don’t have to look forward,” Orla said, “they’re here,” and god, Sirius wanted to _die_ , and then there was a clatter of a door being thrown open and James flung himself nearly panting against her side and said, “Hi, hi, Orla!”

“James,” Orla said, looking even more amused and condescending, Sirius hated her life so much.

“Looking forward to the Christmas hols?” James asked, breathless, and Sirius groaned, tiny and inaudible.

Orla laughed at them both, at them, and then leaned forward, hand lingering on James’s shoulder, to kiss his cheek. “I’m sure I’ll see you both soon,” she said, and swept on down the way, and James and Sirius stared longingly after her.

“She kissed me,” James said wondrously.

“I hate you,” Sirius said, “I _hate_ you, we were having a conversation,” and James laughed and threw his arm around her shoulders.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “you can be my best man when I marry her.”

Sirius snarled at him. 

“Come on,” James said, still beaming, “are you going to get chocolate for Lil? I’ll split a packet of beans with you.”

“Fine,” Sirius grumbled, and let him drag her along.

\---

James went for Esther as soon as they got off the train. She was running along the platform, waving her hands in the air, and Sirius watched his face light up; he jumped off and swept her up into his arms and Sirius rolled her eyes, hefting hers and Lily’s trunks, trying not to feel jealous. She’d told James about it once and he’d laughed at her and said, “And how d’you think I feel when Lily _and_ Score come looking for you every time they have a question?” Also, one time she’d overheard the Dads having a low, worried conversation about whether she and James were too obsessed with each other and would they ever make their own friends, which was _stupid_ , but she’d made an effort since then not to play into their arguments.

She looked over toward the platform instead, and something quiet and solid thunked in her chest when she saw her parents, standing next to the Weasleys. Harry was talking to Hermione, head bent in concentration, and Draco was listening to them while clearly scanning the platform, alert and watchful. Sirius stood still in the doorway of the train for a moment, ignoring the congestion behind her, until her dad’s eyes lit on her and he smiled crookedly.

“All right, shut up, twerp,” Sirius told the indignant Hufflepuff behind her, and jumped down onto the platform. She gave Lily’s trunk a kick and sent it spinning across the floor, nearly bowling over a second year Gryffindor, and Draco came towards her, that easy stride that made crowds part. Both the Dads had it, but Draco’s was always a little uncertain, like he wasn’t sure how people were moving, or for what reason.

Lily raced past Sirius, getting to him first, but Sirius didn’t mind, let Draco seize Lily in a hug and came up to join them.

“Hey, Dad,” she said, and Draco gave her that quick top-to-toe scan that he always did, as though checking nothing important had fallen off, and then nodded at her. When Lily was born, James and Sirius had gone through a few months of agonising jealousy over the fact that she had the Potter Eyes that everyone always talked about, green and piercing, but secretly now she liked that she had Draco’s, that she could look level into his gaze and feel stupidly at home.

Draco made an impatient gesture and Sirius ducked in to hug him, his kiss pressed to her hair. She said quietly, “James says we’re having Christmas at the Manor?”

“Your father has decided we’re going to make amends,” Draco said dryly. “Again.”

“Did he and Grandma fight again?”

Draco rolled his eyes.

“Did Dad vomit?” Sirius asked out of interest, because what had once been weird and a little scary was now mostly just funny, but Draco didn’t smile, even as his jaw twitched.

“Be good,” he said.

“Slytherin,” she countered, and Draco grinned at her, quick and artless. It was the same grin she’d seen when, coming home for Christmas the first time, James had recounted, groaning, “The Hat took _ages_ to decide on me, like, nearly ten minutes, it was awful, it was so embarrassing, and then it barely touched her head before--”

She would have liked to have been in the same house as James. But she wouldn’t give up being a Slytherin for anything, not even to avoid the first two years when people told her that Harry couldn’t really be her dad, that she was a Malfoy and evil through and through, that she didn’t deserve to be at Hogwarts.

“And then,” Lily said below her, “Dad, Dad, are you listening? And _then_ \--”

“I’m listening,” he said, though he murmured to Sirius, “Did I just see Orla Parkinson waving at you?” and Sirius groaned and said, “ _Dad_ ,” and broke away to go hug Harry.

“Hi,” Harry said, and ruffled her hair, groaning, “God, you’ve grown _again_ , are you trying to upset me?”

“Nearly always,” she said. “Where’s Score?”

“Run off with Louis and Lucy,” Harry said. “Did you just kick your sister’s trunk?”

“Hey, at least I didn’t make her carry it,” she said. 

“Mm,” Harry said. “Beat Gryffindor in the latest match, I heard?”

Sirius grinned at him, sharp-toothed. “Maybe it’s time for you to lose the Boxing Day Match.”

“All right, kiddo,” Harry said, “keep dreaming - oh, can you get James to stop dangling Esther over the train tracks? I don’t _care_ if she thinks it’s funny, Neville nearly throws up every time he sees--”

“All right, all right,” Sirius said, but at that point Lily threw herself into Harry’s arms shrieking and Score came running up to grab at her and Sirius started tackling him there on the platform, whooping and narrating, and Draco raised his voice and said, “Okay, idiots! Let’s go home!”

\---

They lasted three hours at the Manor after Christmas Dinner. “A personal best,” Harry told Draco as they got back to Grimmauld Place, and Draco made a face at him and went back to trying to remain impartial as Sirius and James argued with him over who deserved Orla Parkinson-Zabini’s love the most.

Draco looked, very carefully, over at Harry, who tried not to glower. He did not like Orla _at all_. She took after her mother. He did not see why his two eldest were infatuated with her. It felt like the kind of thing that would lead to some awful Greek play.

Esther tugged shyly at his hand. “Daddy?” she said. “Can Score and I go fly the new kite?”

Harry glanced out. “Only for half an hour. It’s getting dark.”

The new kite was a dragon. Harry’s life was overrun with dragon memorabilia and toys. He blamed Monster, and, as a result, Draco.

He came through into the kitchen and hung up his coat, pulling off the new Weasley Jumper - Draco had flatly refused to put his on, James and Sirius had already swapped, and Lily was walking rigidly so she didn’t let a single mote of dust touch hers - and sticking the kettle on. He dropped the heavy bag of presents by the cupboard, put away the leftovers Narcissa had insisted on loading them down with, and went quietly past to snag the back of Draco’s shirt and steal a kiss.

“ _Dad_ ,” James said, groaning and covering his face with his hands, and Sirius rolled her eyes and turned away. Lily didn’t break stream in her latest story. 

“I’m making hot chocolate,” Sirius said, which would have been very sweet except that Harry had worked out her trick of slipping Firewhiskey into hers and James’s last Christmas, when they got tipsy enough that she accidentally gave him the spiked one, so he came over to help, smiling blandly at her when she glared at him. For a while the kitchen was all noise and chaos, and then one by one they slipped off to the living room, to read or play with new toys or, in the case of Sirius and James, write a long and devoted love letter to Orla Parkinson, having apparently decided that somehow approaching her in unison would strengthen their case.

Harry finished making his hot chocolate, and reached for the Firewhiskey. A shadow fell over him. He reached behind him without looking, slipped his fingers through Draco’s beltloops and tugged, and Draco leaned against his back, cheek dropping against Harry’s hair.

“One for me, too,” he said. Harry yawned and summoned a cup with a flick of his fingers, and Draco mouthed lazily at his neck and said, “Show-off.”

“That wasn’t so bad,” Harry said. “With your mum.”

“And it means we get to have next year at home,” Draco said. “Not such a terrible trade off.”

Harry nodded, worn out. Esther had woken them up at five. It had been a long day, but when Draco turned him around, leaned him back against the counter, Harry went easily, smiling up at him.

“Happy Christmas,” he said.

“You’re a sap, Potter,” Draco said, and kissed him properly, hand curled in Harry’s hair, leaning into him, needy and possessive.

Harry felt dizzy and happy and overwhelmed the way he did every Christmas; once, when Sirius and James were thirteen, he and Draco had gotten extremely drunk and giddy after everyone went to bed and Harry had asked, _do you think I’ll ever take this for granted?_ and Draco had fairly climbed into his lap, he was kissing him so hard. He cupped his hand over Draco’s hip, and Draco slid his hand down Harry’s back, into his back pocket, and squeezed. Harry laughed, jerking forward instinctively.

“James says we’re much too old to make out anymore,” Draco murmured.

“Our wise child,” Harry said, and pulled Draco closer. In the living room, there was a crash and a shriek. Harry would go investigate in a moment.

\---

They usually went to Ron and Hermione’s on Boxing Day: the house was about the same size as Grimmauld Place, but it was in Dorset, with miles of countryside round it, and it meant they could kick the kids outside and hang around in the kitchen themselves, drinking and eating the combination of at least three separate Christmas Dinner leftovers. That year they arrived with bags overflowing - yet more gifts, along with the food and booze - and Score and Esther immediately enlisted Hugo in an intense and somehow _loud_ game of hide and go seek. Harry sent them outside. Lily trailed, starstruck, behind Hermione, just barely resisting climbing onto her lap, and Rose sat down at the far end of the kitchen table and set about ignoring all of them, her gaze firmly on the book in front of her, and not, Harry noticed, on James, who was lounging against the door laughing about something to Ron.

“No, it was fine,” Draco was telling Hermione as Harry found a seat and helped himself to a beer. “Mum and the twins always huddle up in some corner now so she’s mostly distracted, and she doesn’t _mind_ kids, she just doesn’t really know how to talk to them, so it’s - you know, there’s too much going on for anything too ridiculous to happen.”

“That’s what you think,” Harry said. “She still manages to threaten me at least once a visit.”

“But normally quite gently, Dad,” Sirius said, who they’d long given up on keeping out of family gossip. She reached for a beer, too, and Harry stared at her until she sighed loudly and went to make a cup of tea instead. She’d be drinking by the end of the day, but Harry tried to seize moments of authority where he could.

“Well, she’s mellowing in her old age,” Harry said, exchanging a look with Hermione.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Hermione said, and sat down. “Lily, I suppose you’re too old to sit on my lap now?”

Lily considered, clearly very torn between wanting to sit on Hermione’s lap and wary of James and Sirius watching. Eventually she dragged up a stool and sat primly next to Hermione. 

“I don’t know if she’s _mellowing_ ,” Sirius said, coming to sit between Draco and Harry. “She still doesn’t like you very much, Dad.”

“I think she likes him too much,” Draco said, “and is annoyed by it.”

“Well, that counts,” Sirius said. “Anyway, it’s not like she’s nice to you. You just hide.”

“Yes, thank you, Sirius,” Harry said dryly. “You can rub it in some more how much Narcissa loves you, if you like.”

“She does love me,” Sirius confided to Hermione. “She says I’m like her if she didn’t have to be confined to all the Black politeness.”

“Which is also a dig at me,” Harry said, and Draco laughed.

“Nah, I reckon she means it,” Sirius said, “and she said once that I reminded her of her favourite cousin.”

“Mmm,” Hermione murmured, “I wonder who that is,” and Sirius rolled her eyes, uninterested by the looks the grown ups were exchanging.

Lily, clearly bored, tugged on Hermione’s sleeve and cleared her throat.

“How’s school?” Hermione asked, smiling warmly down at her. “Rose says you’re doing very well.”

Rose, fourteen years old and haughtier than Hermione had ever been, sniffed.

“It’s good,” Lily said, and launched into a monologue about her favourite classes and her friends and how stupid it was that she wasn’t allowed on the Quidditch team yet. Harry and Draco had heard most of it already, and Sirius and James were already looking bored, but Ron and Hermione bent their heads down to Lily and listened attentively.

Draco tapped his foot against Harry’s, under the table. Harry tapped back.

“Gryffindor’s the best, obviously,” Lily said idly, “but everyone says they knew I’d get in, ‘cos of Dad, which is stupid, because _Sirius_ isn’t in Gryffindor.”

“Because of Dad,” Sirius said, looking up and winking, and Draco winked back at her. Harry rolled his eyes. Sometimes it was like the two of them had their own language.

“Anyway, that’s what I told them,” Lily said, and reached for a mince pie. “Then Sunnie Thomas tried to tell me that the Dads used to hate each other and fight all the time.”

“Did she,” Hermione said, level-voiced, while Harry and Draco exchanged a quick glance and James laughed at the other end of the table.

“Mm,” Lily said. “Everyone’s very stupid.”


	5. Chapter 5

**NOVEMBER, 2025**

Scorpius was a nervy first year, much worse than Lily had been, and Sirius worried about what would happen next year when she and James weren’t around to keep an eye on him. It didn’t help that he was in Ravenclaw, to everyone’s bemusement: he hadn’t been particularly bookishly inclined when they were young, and sometimes he looked a little lost amongst the flood of Ravenclaws heading to the library after class every day. Sirius tried where she could, but there was only so much a seventh year could do; not to mention a seventh year Slytherin. “You’re scaring all his potential friends!” James had said, as they headed over the bright lawns one morning to visit Monster, and Sirius had sighed and given it up.

She’d tried to give him one of her photos from home, a Christmas one with Scorpius and Lily and Esther half-asleep like puppies in front of the open fire, and a fourteen year old Sirius looking very solemn over a game of wizarding chess with Harry, and James clearly reenacting some great Quidditch victory for Draco, but Scorpius had looked at her as though she was crazy and told her that he couldn’t put pictures up in his room, everyone would think he was a loser.

“James puts them up,” Sirius had said, but James was the most unselfconscious seventeen year old boy in the history of the planet and Scorpius just made a face. Sirius grinned just thinking about the photos James had, blithely uncaring of whatever rude jokes his dorm mates would make: the one of the whole family before Sirius and James caught the Hogwarts Express for the first time, their faces shining with excitement and Lily sick with envy and sulking and Esther just a tiny bundle in Harry’s arms; the one from the Dads’ wedding, both of them young and handsome and crammed up close, grinning stupidly, Harry’s arm hugged around Draco’s neck. Every now and then photo Harry would ruffle photo Draco’s hair and photo Draco would tell him off, it was the best.

Sirius had a photo of the family on her dresser, too, a carefully chosen one that declared her alleigance as best she could to both Potter and Malfoy clans, because Slytherins were hard and nuanced people whom she loved and rolled her eyes at simultaneously. It was taken on the steps of Grimmauld Place, and it had Narcissa in a corner, cool and steely-eyed, but Harry had his arms hugged around Sirius’s shoulders, and she was standing firmly in front of him, the same way James was standing in front of Draco. Draco had seen her take it from the photo album and rolled his eyes.

“You might as well take a non-political one, too,” he’d said, and so she’d taken the Christmas photo which Scorpius had so scornfully declined.

She had another photo, though she kept it tucked away in her trunk. She didn’t think Scorpius would like it; even James hadn’t really liked it, had a made a face and passed it onto her without really looking when they first found it. It was very old, and had fallen to the bottom of a box, not in one of the photo albums; the Dads were both wearing their Hogwarts uniforms, white shirts rolled up in tentative sunshine, standing close together but not quite touching. Draco looked cross in a way that Sirius wasn’t used to, his mouth twisted and sour, his eyebrows drawn down. Harry looked awkward and suspicious when he looked at the camera, which was rare; mostly he was staring at Draco, intense and sure and possessive, oblivious to anything else. Every now and then their elbows knocked. 

Sirius liked it. Once it had fallen out of her trunk when she came home and Harry had picked it up and laughed. “Where did you find this old thing?” Sirius had shrugged and Harry had studied it for a moment longer and shaken his head, murmured, almost to himself, very fondly, “What a little brat,” and handed it back to her. She liked that about it, too.

But she didn’t think Scorpius would get it. So she wrote to her parents and asked if they could come meet them for the first Hogsmeade weekend of the year, and then she went and borrowed the Invisibility Cloak off James, who had it that month. Scorpius was all grins and bright eyes when she covered him up in it, and Sirius quietly bundled him out the door in front of her, snarling at a couple of fourth-years who tried to sit too close on the carriage ride across.

James was sitting next to her. “You’re going to get spotted,” he murmured in her ear, and Sirius shrugged. Once they were _in_ Hogsmeade she couldn’t get stopped, only in trouble. She’d been in trouble before. James gave her a look, and she gave him one back.

“Fine,” James said. “If it makes you feel better.”

Sirius glared and thumped him in the arm.

At Hogsmeade, Lily came running up to them, impatient. “Do we _have_ to meet the Dads?” she demanded. “A bunch of us are going to Honeydukes - I want to _see_ \--”

“You’ve been to Honeydukes a million times, Lil,” Sirius said. “You’ve even been on your own before.”

“Not at school, though!”

“All right, go for half an hour,” James said, checking his watch. “Then meet us at the Hog’s Head, yeah?”

“You arranged for us to go to the _Hog’s Head_?” Sirius demanded. “ _James_!”

“What?”

“You’re such a _Gryffindor_ ,” Sirius groaned, and then, “All right, then,” and tucked her hand over Scorpius’s invisible shoulder, leading him off towards the most _obvious_ pub in the entire world, she thought even the Dads had a story of warning about this.

Harry and Draco were waiting outside the Hog’s Head, heads bent close and talking quietly. Sirius gave James a quick shove and tightened her hand warningly on Scorpius’s shoulder, and James trundled forward obediently to give the Dads a hug and distract them while Sirius waved and made for the doorway of the Head.

She almost made it. Then Draco moved casually in for a hug - casual being the giveaway, Draco never did _anything_ casually - and Sirius did a frantic twitch but it wasn’t enough to hide the fact that there was an invisible mass blocking Draco from getting close to her.

Draco raised his eyebrows.

“Oh, come on, let’s go inside,” Sirius demanded, “will you buy me a drink?”

“Keep your voice down,” Draco said mildly, but they got inside and sat down - Sirius chose the edge of a bench, and squashed Scorpius in next to her, and after a while Draco came back with drinks for all of them - Butterbeer for James and Harry, an Elvish wine for him, and something that looked like Butterbeer but didn’t taste like it for Sirius. She grinned at him.

Harry looked up from where he and James had been discussing Quidditch in detail and said, “How are you, Sirius? That was very sweet of you to invite us.”

“Wasn’t it?” Draco drawled. “Sirius, unveil the brat.”

“M’not a brat,” Scorpius protested, squirming out of the Cloak, and Sirius sighed and tugged it the rest of the way off as Harry gaped and Draco took a sip of his wine.

“ _Scorpius_ ,” Harry said, astonished, “you stole my Cloak?”

“I never!” Scorpius said, face all screwed up and indignant. “Sirius and James stole it! They steal it every year! And this was Sirius’s idea, anyway--”

“Score!” Sirius said, horrified. “See if I do anything for you ever again, you ungrateful little fathead!”

“Language,” Draco said.

“Dad, we don’t,” James said earnestly, “I don’t know what he’s talking about--”

“Oh, Potter, come on, you shouldn’t be this useless at noticing it,” Draco said, rolling his eyes. “I’ve counted at least three years they definitely took the Cloak, and I’m not surprised--”

“I’m not _useless_ ,” Harry said, “I’m just usually the one under it, I suppose. Sirius, James, that was very wrong of you.” 

His mouth was twitching. Draco rolled his eyes and said again under his breath, “ _Useless_.”

“Anyway, I’m actually being an incredibly kind and loving sister?” Sirius said. “If anyone wants to pay attention to that? Score’s been homesick.”

“I have _not_ ,” Scorpius said, scowling, but he twitched his way off the end of the bench and went to sit between the Dads.

James stole a sip of Sirius’s drink and said, pleased, “ _Ooh_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may post more of this one day, or this might be it! Thanks to everyone who asked about this and made me want to write a lil more in this universe. <3

**Author's Note:**

> And that's it for now! I will probably not write anything major more in this verse, but you're welcome to come chat to me about it on [tumblr](http://www.dddraconis.tumblr.com).


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